THE 

CRESTING 
WAVE 

BY 

EDWIN  BATEMAN  MORRIS 


Author  of 
Blue  Anchor  Inn,"  "The  Millionaire, " etc. 


THE  PENN  PUBLISHING 
COMPANY,  PHILADELPHIA 

1920 


COPYRIGHT 
1920  BY 
THE  PENN 
PUBLISHING 
COMPANY 


THE  CRESTING  WAVE 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I  INVENTOR  OR  PIRATE 5 

II  THE  LADDER  OF  FAME 31 

III  ADVENTURE 55 

IV  OPPORTUNITY 71 

V  Miss  BARCLAY  BLUSHES 87 

VI  A  DIVERTING  GAME 98 

VII  THE  NEW  RELIGION 112 

VIII  THE  FOUR-LEAVED  CLOVER     .      .      .      .125 

IX  THE  PAGEANT 139 

X  OLD  DOMINION 158 

XI  A  PRIOR  CLAIM 164 

XII  A  PASTEBOARD  CODE 184 

XIII  PAPER  PROFIT 193 

XIV  THE  LEOPARD'S  CAGE 200 

XV  THE  INNER  VOICE 207 

XVI  BOUND  BEACH 216 

XVII  HOLIDAY 218 

XVIII  WILLIAM  TURNS  THE  SCREW      .     .      .  229 

XIX  A  DIAMOND-SHAPED  PIN 237 

XX  THE  DISTURBING  PERSON       ....  245 

XXI  I  AM  THE  MAN 256 

XXII  THE  RECKONING 272 


2137382 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 

XXIII 

XXIV 

XXV 

XXVI 

XXVII 

XXVIII 

XXIX 

XXX 

XXXI 

XXXII 

XXXIII 

XXXIV 

XXXV 


PAGE 

DISASTER .     .     .  291 

COPY-BOOK  MORALITY       .      .      .      . 

DECISION 

THE  YAWL 

THE  LIFE  LINE 


330 

345 
358 


THE  ARK  OF  THE  COVENANT  ....  364 

MARY  SMITH 372 

"THIS  is  WILLIAM  SPADE"    .     .     .     .380 

DUSK 389 

A  BEAUTIFUL  WORLD 393 

THE  LETTER 399 

THE  ANSWER 402 

RUTH  TAKES  OFF  HER  HAT  ....  409 


THE   CRESTING   WAVE 

CHAPTER  I 

INVENTOR    OR    PIRATE 

William  Spade's  clearest  recollection  of  his 
early  youth  was  of  the  amazing  frequency  with 
which  Sunday  reappeared.  For  Sunday  was  a 
day  of  sackcloth  and  mortification  of  the  flesh. 
The  sackcloth  was  no  mere  playful  figure  of 
speech.  Early  in  the  morning,  while  the  birds 
sang  without  and  the  sun  shone  in  his  window, 
giving  false  assurance  of  the  joyousness  of  the 
world,  he  was  attired  in  the  hairy  shirt  of  the 
martyr.  Starched  shirtwaist  it  was,  with  starched 
collar  and  starched  cuffs,  studded  at  the  neck  and 
wristbands  with  pins  sticking  inwards.  If  he  ex- 
amined the  thing  carefully  before  putting  it  on, 
there  was  no  sign  of  these  subtle  instruments  of 
torture.  But  as  soon  as  it  had  been  buttoned 
upon  him,  with  much  moistening  of  the  button- 
holes, and  the  necktie  drawn  up  taut,  the  points 
quickly  appeared,  like  the  thorns  in  the  Bible,  and 

5 


6  THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

set  about  choking  him  in  the  regular  biblical  man- 
ner. He  was  then  removed  to  a  smaller  torture 
chamber,  and  his  hair  brushed  by  the  application 
of  great  pressure — after  which,  while  he  stood 
upon  one  foot,  his  necktie  was  patted  into  just  the 
proper  shape,  his  coat  pulled  down,  his  stockings, 
already  tight  as  a  second  epidermis,  pulled  up,  a 
stray  hair  settled  in  just  its  appointed  place,  and 
he  was  allowed  to  depart,  feeling  like  a  wax  boy  in 
a  clothing  shop. 

What  joy  did  it  afford  him  now  to  gaze  upon 
the  alluring  line  of  sewer  pipe  lying  by  the  curb- 
stone, through  the  length  of  which  he  had  yester- 
day crawled  upon  his  hands  and  knees?  Or  upon 
the  pile  of  damp  sand,  beyond  the  pipes,  suggest- 
ing to  his  imagination  bridges  and  caves  and  long 
tunnels  that  could  be  excavated  by  lying  upon 
one's  stomach  and  reaching  in  as  far  as  the  length 
of  an  arm"?  But  for  some  reason  it  appeared  to 
irritate  his  parents  if  he  performed  any  of  these 
joyful  experiments  in  his  starched  white  shirt  and 
his  Sunday  suit.  He  had  tried  it  and  knew  the 
disastrous  results.  Upon  Sundays  his  mother's 
mind  considered  him  simply  as  a  symphony  of 
clean  and  beautiful  clothes,  for  which  he  per- 
formed the  humble  part  of  being  merely  the  neces- 
sary stuffing. 


INVENTOR  OR  PIRATE  7 

He  used  to  wonder  each  Sunday  why  his  mother 
was  never  late  for  church.  He  would  watch  for 
the  clock,  knowing  that  if  the  hand  passed  beyond 
a  quarter  before  eleven,  she  would  consider  it  too 
late  to  go.  But,  at  just  that  time,  she  would  rus- 
tle into  the  room,  put  on  his  round  hat,  snap  the 
elastic  under  his  chin  and  behind  his  ears,  and, 
thus  harnessed,  lead  him  forth.  It  was  a  mourn- 
ful pilgrimage.  He  was  not  allowed  to  whistle  or 
put  his  hands  in  his  pockets.  He  was  not  allowed 
to  climb  up  on  the  low  stone  wall  which  adjoined 
the  sidewalk  at  a  certain  place  and  walk  along  its 
coping,  as  was  his  usual  custom.  He  could  not 
persuade  his  mother  to  alter  her  route  by  walking 
through  a  small  alley  instead  of  on  the  more  pre- 
tentious street,  although  it  was  undeniably  much 
shorter.  She  objected  to  the  ash  barrels  and  gar- 
bage receptacles,  which  to  his  mind  were  an  inter- 
esting and  picturesque  adjunct  to  the  scenery. 

The  church  itself  was  doleful.  Everyone  con- 
versed in  strained  whispers,  concealing  his  real 
nature  behind  a  melancholy  solemnity.  Upon 
one  occasion  he  had  attempted  to  inject  life  into 
the  proceedings  by  shouting  across  the  aisle  to  his 
uncle,  a  hail-fellow-well-met  person  in  real  life, 
their  usual  pleasant  salutation  of  "Hi,  Buster" — 
in  a  shrill,  eager  voice,  but  this  had  been  emphat- 


8  THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

ically  discouraged  by  both  his  mother  and  his 
uncle.  More  than  half  expecting  this  course  of 
action  from  his  mother,  he  was  bitterly  disap- 
pointed in  his  uncle.  This  was,  however,  an  illus- 
tration of  the  warping  influence  of  the  religious 
edifice. 

At  another  time  he  had  balanced  his  sailor  hat, 
inverted,  upon  the  top  of  his  head  and,  cleverly 
placing  his  gloves  one  upon  each  side  of  the  rim, 
had  by  moving  his  head  judiciously  from  side  to 
side,  maintained  it  in  equilibrium.  This  piece  of 
good  comedy  had  made  an  impression  upon  every- 
one for  some  distance  about.  But  just  as  he  had 
begun  to  feel  that  they  were  getting  into  the  spirit 
of  the  thing,  his  mother,  becoming  conscious  of 
certain  strange  noises  in  the  pews  behind,  had 
deflected  her  attention  from  the  first  lesson  to  her 
son  and  removed  the  hat  and  the  gloves,  spoiling 
it  all. 

The  only  part  of  the  church  service  that  was  at 
all  bearable  to  him  was  the  long  prayers.  Then 
he  could  lean  forward  and  rest  his  forehead  upon 
the  pew  in  front  of  him  and  think  out  the  serious 
problems  of  life.  Or  sometimes  he  would  direct 
his  languid  attention  to  the  gullible  and  trusting 
minister,  kneeling  at  his  little  desk  with  his  back 
to  the  audience,  reading  things  from  a  book  for 


INVENTOR  OR  PIRATE  9 

them  to  repeat  after  him.  And  sometimes  they 
did  repeat  them  after  him.  But  more  frequently 
they  put  up  a  game  on  the  unsuspecting  gentleman 
and  after  he  had  read  a  long  speech,  would  answer 
perfunctorily  with  a  few  words  and  he,  thinking 
they  had  said  it  all,  would  go  on  with  more.  It 
seemed  a  transparent  deception  to  William,  but, 
apparently,  the  clergyman  never  discovered  it. 

His  opinion  of  this  particular  clergyman  was 
not  an  exalted  one.  As  he  grew  older,  reaching 
the  important  age  of  eight,  when  it  was  no  longer 
sufficient  for  his  peace  of  mind  to  lean  forward 
with  his  head  upon  the  bench  in  front  of  him,  he 
began  to  listen  in  a  tolerant  way  to  the  talk  that 
made  up  the  church  service.  The  fact  that  he 
now  knew  that  the  responses  of  the  congregation 
were  not  supposed  to  be  a  repetition  of  the  minis- 
ter's words  did  not  dispell  the  early  opinion  he 
had  formed  that  this  person  was  a  visionary 
prophet  who  was  responsible  for  the  gloomy  air  of 
detachment  from  the  world  that  existed  within  the 
four  walls  of  the  church,  and  whose  words  were 
always  urging  people  on  to  an  unnecessary  amount 
of  goodness.  The  boy  did  not  know  what  nar- 
rowness of  mind  and  breadth  of  vision  were,  but, 
with  the  placid  certainty  of  childhood,  he  ascribed 
vaguely  a  quality  very  much  like  the  former  to 


10  THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

the  reverent  divine  and  a  quality  very  much  like 
the  latter  to  himself. 

Upon  one  occasion  the  minister  in  a  sermon 
described  how  the  Ark  of  the  New  Covenant  in 
the  beginning  had  been  borne  on  its  journey  upon 
the  shoulders  of  men,  until  the  poles  that  sup- 
ported it  had  become  smooth  and  polished  from 
the  contact  of  human  hands,  but  that  later  this 
arrangement  had  not  seemed  convenient  and  a 
cart — a  new  cart — had  been  built,  upon  which  the 
Ark  was  thenceforward  transported..  To  the 
clergyman's  mind  this  unwillingness  to  continue  to 
bear  the  burden  had  seemed  to  be  a  matter  for 
criticism,  and  he  had  dwelt  at  length  upon  it, 
drawing  what  seemed  to  the  eight-year-old  con- 
ception an  unsustained  moral.  To  the  practical 
and  straightforward  boyish  mind,  the  building  of 
the  cart  seemed  to  be  a  praiseworthy  improvement, 
in  that  it  accomplished  everything  that  had  been 
accomplished  before — with  much  less  effort.  He 
did  not  see  why  the  new  cart  drawn  by  its  two 
oxen  was  the  symbol  for  luxury  and  the  shirking 
of  responsibility;  and  the  worn  polished  poles  that 
had  borne  the  Ark  before,  the  symbol  of  devotion 
and  earnestness.  It  was  incomprehensible  and  be- 
wildering to  him.  His  only  explanation  was  that 
it  was  a  part  of  the  clergyman's  narrow  and  old- 


INVENTOR  OR  PIRATE  11 

fashioned  view  of  life.  But  though  he  thought 
about  the  problem  many  times,  he  did  not  seek  aid 
from  his  mother.  For  there  was  in  his  mind  the 
vague  conviction  that  he  was  allowing  his  thoughts 
to  run  in  channels  that  would  not  be  approved  by 
parental  authority,  since  he  was  certain  that  his 
mother  did  not  question  the  reasoning  of  the  good 
clergyman. 

After  many  aeons  of  time  his  ninth  birthday 
came  and  passed.  He  particularly  remembered 
the  time  because  there  came  almost  simultane- 
ously with  it  a  change  in  the  method  of  living  of 
the  Spade  family.  They  moved  from  the  small 
house  on  the  narrow  street  to  a  larger  house  on  a 
wide  street,  which  was  furnished  throughout  with 
new  things.  What  with  three  servants,  dessert 
every  evening  for  dinner,  electric  lights,  and  a 
door-bell  that  you  pushed  with  your  finger  instead 
of  grasping  a  knob  and  pulling  it,  the  whole  estab- 
lishment possessed  in  his  eyes  an  almost  unbeliev- 
able air  of  luxury.  Upon  communicating  this 
idea  on  one  occasion  to  his  father,  his  father,  who 
was,  as  he  always  seemed  to  be,  reading  a  news- 
paper, took  off  his  glasses  and  smiled  in  the  pleas- 
ant way  the  boy  liked  to  see. 

"  I  don't  agree  with  you,"  he  replied.  "  I  liked 
the  old  house  better.  That  was  the  house  your 


12  THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

mother  and  I  went  to  when  we  were  first  mar- 
ried. You  were  born  there  and  your  little  cradle 
used  to  sit  in  the  front  room  against  the  chimney- 
breast.  A  great  part  of  my  life  is  bound  up  in  the 
other  house.  I  was  quite  sorry  to  move  to  this 
bigger  one." 

"Then  why  did  you?" 

"  Well,  your  mother  and  I  discussed  it  and  we 
decided  that  it  would  be  better  for  you.  I  am 
anxious  for  you  to  have  all  the  advantages  that  I 
did  not  have.  We  can  afford  it  now,"  Mr.  Spade 
continued.  "I  have  been  successful  in  my  busi- 
ness and  I  want  my  son  to  reap  the  fruits  of  our 
prosperity." 

William  felt  very  responsible  and  grown-up  to 
think  that  the  change  was  made  entirely  upon  his 
own  account.  But  when  the  actual  reaping  of 
the  fruits  of  prosperity  came,  he  was  not  so  sure 
he  liked  it.  He  found  that  he  was  expected  to 
play  with  the  children  who  lived  in  the  vicinity  of 
the  new  house,  and  they  seemed  to  him,  after  ex- 
amination, to  be  a  flavorless  crowd.  They  were 
fond  of  discussing  their  own  possessions  and  of 
explaining  to  each  other  in  what  way  their  own 
particular  effects  and  chattels  were  superior  to  the 
particular  effects  and  chattels  of  the  person  they 
happened  to  be  conversing  with  at  the  moment. 


INVENTOR  OR  PIRATE  13 

Or,  if  one  of  them  possessed  a  football,  and  with 
a  lordly  condescension  permitted  others  to  share  it 
with  him,  he  was  amiable  as  long  as  the  game  was 
conducted  as  he  wished  it  to  be,  but  as  soon  as 
anyone  questioned  his  right  to  decide  any  disputed 
point  as  he  saw  fit,  he  would  take  his  football  and 
go  home. 

William  usually  referred  to  this  squad  as 
"sissies" — in  their  presence  if  he  were  especially 
irritated  with  them;  and  when  they  tried  his  pa- 
tience too  much,  he  would  relieve  his  mind  by 
making  a  visit  to  his  former  associates  and  telling 
them  all  about  it.  The  former  associates  were  a 
much  more  virile  organization — if  you  called  them 
rough-necks,  they  felt  themselves  complimented. 
When  they  knocked  a  baseball  through  someone's 
parlor  window,  they  laughed  and  ran.  If  a  blue- 
coated  administrator  of  the  law  pursued,  they 
dodged  around  the  first  corner,  laid  a  tortuous 
course  through  a  maze  of  small  alleys  and  narrow 
streets  to  some  un-get-at-able  spot,  and  were 
never  caught.  For  weeks  beforehand  they  confis- 
cated ashbarrels  and  boxes  from  distracted  house- 
holders to  furnish  fuel  for  the  election-night  bon- 
fire, built  in  the  middle  of  the  street. 

They  had  a  common  enemy  in  an  old  German 
gentleman  named  Fischbach,  who  rendered  him- 


14  THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

self  ridiculous  in  their  eyes  by  wearing  a  black 
skull-cap  and  smoking  a  pipe  with  a  lid  to  the 
bowl,  who  aroused  their  animosity  by  refusing  to 
let  them  chalk  out  squares  upon  his  pavement  for 
the  purpose  of  playing  hop-scotch,  and  who  rushed 
out  in  a  great  temper  whenever  they  played  any 
of  their  games  (none  of  which  could  be  carried  on 
successfully  without  a  perfect  bedlam  of  shouting 
and  screaming  at  the  top  of  each  particular  play- 
er's lungs)  in  the  street  before  his  house.  This 
unreasonable  behavior  gave  rise  to  the  conviction 
that  he  was  more  than  a  little  touched  in  the  head, 
and  established  in  the  youthful  minds  a  whole- 
some fear  and  at  the  same  time  a  deep-seated 
hatred  of  him. 

Therefore  they  used  to  steal  up  close  by  the 
window  where  he  was  sitting  and,  first  tossing  a 
pebble  lightly  against  the  pane,  drop  a  piece  of 
glass  brought  along  for  the  purpose  upon  the  pave- 
ment— and  run! 

In  all  these  escapades  running  was  the  most 
exciting  part.  They  never  even  witnessed  the  old 
man's  bewilderment  at  finding  the  broken  glass 
upon  the  sidewalk  and  yet  perceiving  the  window 
pane  still  whole.  Or,  in  the  shadow  of  dusk,  they 
would  drive  a  pin  attached  to  the  end  of  a  long 
string  into  the  upper  part  of  the  window  sash  and 


INVENTOR  OR  PIRATE  15 

upon  this  string  a  few  inches  below  the  pin  they 
would  fasten  a  nail  or  a  stone,  in  such  a  manner 
that  they  could  sit  across  the  street  and  by  pulling 
the  string  and  letting  it  go  make  a  mysterious  tap- 
ping upon  the  window  pane  which  would  keep  the 
poor  Fischbach  in  a  state  of  nervous  tension  for 
half  an  hour  or  more. 

But  one  day  the  joy  of  this  enmity  was  turned 
to  gall  and  wormwood  in  William's  mouth.  For 
the  old  gentleman,  attracted  by  his  brown  eyes 
and  laughing  face,  finding  him  upon  this  day  alone 
in  the  street,  called  to  him  and  showed  him  a  new 
way  of  making  the  pointed  piece  of  wood  called  a 
"pussy,"  which  they  used  in  one  of  their  games. 
The  heretical  method  Mr.  Fischbach  employed 
was  to  use  a  piece  of  wood  square  in  section  in- 
stead of  round  in  section,  which  aroused  in  the  boy 
the  deepest  contempt,  for  no  sin  is  more  unforgiv- 
able in  the  small  boy's  mind  than  the  suggestion 
that  he  do  any  particular  thing  in  a  manner  differ- 
ent from  that  in  which  every  other  boy  is  accus- 
tomed to  do  it.  But  worse  than  that  was  the  bit- 
ter disappointment  that  the  common  enemy,  the 
hated  ogre,  should  have  made  friends  with  him! 
And  not  only  made  friends  with  him,  but  pub- 
licly— for  he  was  seen  by  other  members  of  his 
clan.  Ashamed  and  mortified,  he  made  his  escape 


i6  THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

as  soon  as  possible.  The  disgrace  rested  so  heav- 
ily upon  his  shoulders  that  it  was  long  before  he 
went  back  to  this  crowd,  and  never  again  regu- 
larly. 

Summer  came  during  this  self-imposed  exile  and 
all  the  sissies  went  away — most  of  them  to  sum- 
mer camps  in  New  England,  for  their  parents, 
unlike  his  mother  and  father,  seemed  to  take  more 
pains  to  send  them  away  and  to  be  away  from 
them  than  to  cultivate  their  society.  William 
had  noticed  that  most  of  them  were  responsible, 
insofar  as  they  were  responsible  at  all,  to  nurses 
and  governesses  and  not  to  their  fathers  and 
mothers,  whom  they  avoided  and  distrusted  as 
they  did  guests  in  their  houses. 

Mr.  Spade's  business  kept  him  in  the  city  in  the 
summer  as  well  as  in  the  winter.  William  had 
never  known  him  to  take  a  vacation — and  his  wife 
stayed  where  he  stayed.  The  father  noticed  that 
his  boy  was  having  a  lonely  time,  and  on  several 
occasions  took  him  to  his  office,  driving  downtown 
in  the  shiny  buggy  behind  the  sleek  sorrel  horse. 
His  father's  office  was  in  a  big  dingy,  brick  build- 
ing, across  the  whole  front  of  which  was  painted, 
"The  Simpson  and  Spade  Company,  Bolts,  Nuts, 
Roller  Bearings.  The  Spade  Gasoline  Engine." 

"Father,"    inquired    William,    after    he    had 


INVENTOR  OR  PIRATE  17 

spelled  out  this  legend,  "are  you  an  inventor?" 

"Yes,"  replied  his  father,  "I  suppose  I  am." 

William's  approving  eye  rested  upon  him. 

"When  I  grow  up,"  he  asserted  with  conviction, 
"I  am  going  to  be  either  an  inventor  or  a  pi- 
rate." 

Whereupon  his  father,  much  to  his  surprise  and 
pleasure,  began  to  laugh  uncontrollably,  as  if  he 
had  said  something  funny.  Mr.  Spade's  face 
grew  red  and  the  veins  stood  out  on  his  forehead. 

"Well,  son,"  he  said,  presently,  "that  is  a  splen- 
did ambition.  Only  you  must  be  sure  you  learn 
to  tell  the  difference." 

One  day  his  father  suggested  that  it  would  be 
a  very  good  idea  for  the  boy  to  go  to  the  seashore 
for  a  week  or  two,  as  he  needed  a  coat  of  sunburn. 
At  first  William  rebelled.  Since  no  one  he  had 
ever  known,  except  the  sissies,  went  to  the  sea- 
shore, he  was  not  at  all  sure  that  there  was  good 
precedent  for  that  sort  of  thing.  But  when  the 
ships  and  the  sand  and  the  prospect  of  bathing  in 
the  ocean  were  depicted  for  his  enlightenment,  he 
became  reconciled  and  agreed  to  give  the  experi- 
ment a  trial. 

There  was  a  person,  it  appeared,  named  Stark- 
wether  who  kept  a  modest,  retiring  hotel  on  an 
out-of-the-way  piece  of  seacoast,  used  mostly  by 


i8  THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

fishermen  and,  in  the  fall,  by  hunters,  who  was  an 
old  and  trusted  customer  of  Simpson  and  Spade. 
As  well  as  being  a  hotel-keeper,  he  was  a  builder 
and  repairer  of  boats,  and  came  to  purchase  mate- 
rials for  use  in  this  enterprise. 

Mr.  Starkwether,  having  been  consulted  upon 
the  question  of  taking  William  for  a  couple  of 
weeks,  replied  that  this  arrangement  would  be 
quite  satisfactory  to  him,  and  that,  as  he  was 
expecting  to  come  to  the  city  the  following 
Wednesday  on  a  matter  of  business,  he  would  take 
the  boy  back  with  him.  On  the  appointed  day, 
therefore,  William,  together  with  a  real  man's-size 
suitcase,  in  which  his  clothes  were  all  neatly 
packed,  was  driven  down  to  the  office  of  Simpson 
and  Spade;  and  at  noon  Mr.  Starkwether,  with 
William  in  one  hand  and  the  big  suitcase  in  the 
other,  left  the  office  and  started  forth  upon  the 
journey. 

William's  father  had  said  that  Mr.  Starkwether 
was  a  Connecticut  Yankee  of  a  very  pronounced 
type,  and  William,  not  knowing  exactly  what 
sort  of  a  person  a  Connecticut  Yankee  was,  ob- 
served the  gentleman  closely.  After  deep  scru- 
tiny he  decided  that  a  Connecticut  Yankee  was  a 
large  person  with  a  chin  beard  and  no  moustache, 
whose  eyebrows  were  very  bushy  and  whose  eyes 


INVENTOR  OR  PIRATE  19 

closed  tight  when  he  laughed,  making  a  fan- 
shaped  cluster  of  wrinkles  at  their  corners.  He 
asked  his  father  if  this  was  correct,  and  his  father 
replied  that  that  was  the  outward  and  visible 
sign. 

William's  first  view  of  the  sea  was  complicated 
with  many  and  varied  emotions — not  all  of  which 
were  due  to  the  sea.  It  was  five  o'clock  in  the 
afternoon  when  they  arrived  at  Mr.  Starkwether's 
house — or  hotel,  as  the  sign  said,  although  Wil- 
liam did  not  think  it  was  really  much  bigger  than 
an  ordinary  house.  He  was  told  there  was  an 
hour  before  supper  time  and  that  he  might  run 
down  to  the  beach  and  see  the  ocean. 

It  all  seemed  very  wonderful  to  the  boy — too 
wonderful  and  vast  for  him  to  enjoy.  It  was  a 
spectacle  upon  too  large  'a  scale.  All  he  had  pre- 
viously known  of  great  bodies  of  water  was  the 
placid  river  he  had  sometimes  crossed  in  the  ferry- 
boats. Beside  the  ocean,  this  river  no  longer 
seemed  big.  The  waves  of  the  ocean  came  rolling 
in  from  miles  away.  It  was  incredible  that  there 
could  be  so  much  water. 

The  whole  thing  rather  frightened  him.  It 
made  him  feel  small  and  insignificant  and  alone — 
and  it  emphasized  the  fact  that  he  was  in  a  strange 
place,  among  strange  people,  and  living  in  a 


20  THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

strange  house.  His  spirits  dropped  to  a  low  ebb. 
He  walked  along  the  shore  looking  for  the  shells 
and  strange  animals  his  father  had  said  he  would 
see  there.  But  he  found  none  of  these  things. 
There  was  a  bottle  half  covered  with  sand  on 
which  he  found  blown  the  fact  that  it  had  con- 
tained Somebody's  Yeast  Powder.  A  soap  box 
lay  half  buried  in  the  beach,  and  round  it  the 
seething  surf  ebbed  and  flowed.  But  these  were 
not  matters  of  interest.  He  looked  at  the  silver 
watch  his  father  had  given  him,  and  found  that 
it  was  but  twenty  minutes  after  five.  And  he  had 
to  spend  a  whole  week  here. 

From  far  down  the  beach  a  strange  animal  was 
approaching,  running  along  at  the  water's  edge 
splashing  in  the  surf.  To  his  acute  embarrass- 
ment, he  discovered  presently  that  it  was  a  girl  — 
a  girl  apparently  of  about  his  own  age,  clad  in  a 
one  piece  blue  bathing  suit  and  running  barefoot 
in  the  shallow  water.  He  was  standing  close  by 
the  sand  hills  back  from  the  beach  so  that  she  had 
not  seen  him.  He  would  have  escaped  if  he  could, 
but  there  was  nowhere  to  go. 

When  she  first  saw  him  she  stopped  short  and 
stood  with  the  receding  water  curling  about  her 
ankles,  gazing  at  him  speculatively.  This  for  but 
a  moment,  and  then  with  an  unnecessarily  vivid 


INVENTOR  OR  PIRATE  21 

show  of  unconcern,  she  ran  along  again,  splashing 
the  sparkling  water  with  her  feet  as  before.  He 
watched  her  until  she  disappeared  around  a  turn 
in  the  shore,  leaving  him  very  much  alone. 

His  supper  he  ate  that  night  sitting  silent  beside 
Mr.  Starkwether  at  a  long  table  around  which 
many  people — perhaps  a  dozen — were  also  seated. 
No  one  paid  any  attention  to  him  except  to  pat 
him  on  the  head  and  say,  "Good  evening,  little 
man,"  both  of  which  salutations  made  him  boil 
within.  A  fat  lady,  with  a  pronounced  figure, 
sat  beside  him  and  when  she  ate,  crumbs  fell  and 
bounced  off  the  figure  upon  the  table  cloth.  She 
had  a  napkin,  but  this  was  spread  below  upon 
the  second  line  of  defense,  so  to  speak,  and  escaped 
unscathed.  William  knew  it  was  polite  to  spread 
a  napkin  upon  your  lap,  but  in  this  instance  it 
seemed  a  useless  precaution. 

Mr.  Starkwether  talked  a  great  deal  and  told 
stories,  at  which  everyone  laughed — everyone  ex- 
cept the  fat  lady,  who  enjoyed  herself  more  when 
she  was  talking. 

"When  I  was  driving  from  New  Haven  to 
Canaan  just  before  the  blizzard  of  eight'n  eighty- 
eight — "  began  Mr.  Starkwether,  on  one  occasion. 

"You  have  told  us  that  story  before,"  inter- 
rupted the  lady  beside  William,  acidly,  she  hav- 


22  THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

ing  had  her  mouth  open  to  start  upon  an  interest- 
ing story  of  her  own. 

"I'll  tell  it  to  you  again,"  observed  the  other, 
good-humoredly.  And  the  fat  lady,  with  lips  set 
in  a  hard  line,  sat  through  the  repetition  of  this 
particular  story — with  every  appearance  of  Spar- 
tan fortitude,  which  made  it  more  enjoyable  for 
the  narrator  and  the  others  gathered  about  the 
table. 

William  did  not  understand  why  they  all 
laughed,  but  presently  he  did  not  care  whether  he 
understood  or  not.  For  the  girl  he  had  seen  upon 
the  beach  came  into  the  dining-room  and  sat  down 
at  the  other  end  of  the  long  table.  She  had  on  a 
yellow  dress  and  wore  a  yellow  hair  ribbon.  A 
lady  was  with  her  who  was  evidently  her  mother. 
It  seemed  to  him  that  the  girl  knew  he  was  at  the 
table  and  recognized  him  as  having  been  upon  the 
beach.  But  she  did  not  so  much  as  look  at  him. 
She  talked  very  vivaciously  to  her  mother  and  to 
the  gentlemen  at  her  end  of  the  table,  who  teased 
her  about  her  yellow  dress ;  but,  as  far  as  William 
was  concerned,  he  might  have  been  the  mere  leg  of 
the  table. 

After  supper  he  slipped  away  and  walked  down 
the  sandy  lane  that  served  for  a  street  between 
the  collection  of  houses  and  stores  that  in  turn 


INVENTOR  OR  PIRATE  23 

served  for  the  town.  There  were  a  dozen  or  more 
persons  gathered  about  a  building  which  appeared 
to  be  a  general  store,  and  the  boy  seized  the  oppor- 
tunity to  bury  his  sorrows  in  a  bag  of  molasses 
candy.  He  did  not  linger  long  in  the  store,  for 
there  was  a  half -intoxicated  individual  there,  who 
addressed  several  remarks  of  facetious  import  to 
him. 

"Are  you  staying  with  Mr.  Starkwether*?"  the 
man  demanded,  at  length. 

"Yes,"  William  replied,  as  that  seemed  to  him 
to  be  a  civil  question. 

"Well,  tell  him  I'm  coming  up  there  to  collect 
that  two  dollars  he  owes  me." 

William  opened  the  door  of  the  store.  How- 
ever, it  did  not  seem  right  to  give  the  impression 
that  he  was  going  to  deliver  the  message. 

"I  shan't  tell  him  that.  You'll  have  to  do  it 
yourself." 

Then  he  shut  the  door  and  hurried  up  the  street, 
half  fearing  that  his  questioner  would  follow  him 
and  force  him  to  take  the  message.  But  it  was 
after  nightfall  before  he  saw  him  again.  Wil- 
liam was  sitting  on  a  wooden  bench  by  the  fence 
that  surrounded  the  hotel,  listening  to  a  tale  of 
Mr.  Starkwether's,  when  the  gate  opened  behind 
them  and  the  half-intoxicated  individual  of  the 


24  THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

store,  now  perhaps  three-quarters  intoxicated, 
good  measure,  lurched  in  and  supported  himself 
upon  the  rustic  table  beside  the  bench. 

"I've  come  for  that  two  dollars,  Ezra  Stark- 
wether,"  he  announced,  unsteadily. 

Starkwether  eyed  him  through  the  narrow  slits 
of  his  eyes. 

"To  what  two  dollars  do  you  refer,  Peter*?" 

"The  two  that's  coming  to  me  for  painting  the 
keel  of  the  Mary  B" 

"I  paid  you  that." 

"That's  a  lie." 

The  other  looked  at  him  thoughtfully. 

"I'll  ask  you  to  get  out  of  here  now,"  he  ob- 
served. 

"You  can't  put  me  out."  Peter  moved  his 
huge  bulk  defiantly  closer. 

Starkwether  rose.  "I  don't  know  whether  I 
can  or  not,  but  I  can  try." 

Thereupon  he  seized  Peter  in  an  iron  grip  and 
tossed  him  bodily  through  the  open  gate.  The 
man  lay  dazed,  sprawling  in  the  sandy  road,  and 
then  wonderingly  picked  himself  up  and  moved 
away.  Somewhere  in  the  darkness  he  stopped. 

"I  didn't  believe  you  could,"  he  said,  incredu- 
lously, "but  you  did  it." 

Starkwether  walked  with  the  boy  toward  the 


INVENTOR  OR  PIRATE  25 

house.  William  was  tremendously  impressed  at 
the  show  of  physical  strength. 

"Son,"  said  the  old  man,  "always  be  firm.  It  is 
a  good  rule  to  follow." 

When  William  arose  in  the  morning,  he  felt 
that  his  visit  had  lasted  long  enough.  He  saw 
that  there  promised  to  be  but  little  for  him  to  do 
here — no  other  boys,  unfamiliar  places,  and  a  fat 
woman  to  sit  by  at  the  table.  He  came  down- 
stairs with  the  intention  of  breaking  the  news  that 
he  was  going  back  home  at  once.  But  the  fat 
woman  met  him  before  he  had  had  a  chance  to 
explain  his  position,  and  in  an  elaborately  face- 
tious manner,  designed  to  put  a  child  of  ten  at  his 
ease,  told  him  there  was  to  be  a  picnic  that  day 
and  he  was  to  be  invited.  This  was  very  polite 
of  the  fat  lady,  and  it  would  have  been  rude  of 
him  to  refuse.  So  he  said  he  would  be  pleased 
to  go. 

At  the  picnic,  he  proved  to  be  the  only  repre- 
sentative of  the  sterner  sex.  The  fat  lady,  the 
mother  of  the  girl  about  his  own  age,  and  some 
six  other  females  were  the  body  of  the  party. 
The  girl  about  his  own  age  hovered  about  far 
ahead  as  an  advance  guard,  and  William,  like  a 
cartoon  representing  the  oppressed  common  peo- 
ple, staggered  along  in  the  rear  lugging  a  basket 


26  THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

(as  chivalry  required  he  should)  weighing  in  the 
first  place  about  twenty  pounds  and  growing 
heavier  as  the  journey  progressed.  He  decided 
presently  that  his  vacation  was  a  complete  failure. 
But  just  then,  as  if  merely  for  the  purpose  of 
proving  that  the  night  is  darkest  before  the  dawn, 
a  voice  behind  him — a  silvery,  pleasant  voice — 
said: 

"May  I  help  with  the  basket?" 

"Oh,"  he  exclaimed,  facing  about  to  look 
straight  at  none  other  than  the  girl  herself.  "Is 
it  you?" 

"Why,  I  think  so,"  she  replied,  soberly. 
"Pinch  me  and  see  if  it  isn't?" 

She  held  out  her  hand.  He  took  it  between  his 
thumb  and  forefinger.  It  was  soft  and  very  much 
like  satin. 

"I'm  sure  it's  you,"  he  said,  and  they  both 
laughed.  "But  I  thought  you  were  very  far 
ahead." 

"I  was,  but  I  hid  behind  the  sand-hills  until 
everyone  had  gone  by." 

He  picked  up  a  long  stick  and  slipped  it  through 
the  handle  of  the  basket  so  that  each  of  them 
could  hold  an  end  and  let  the  burden  swing  be- 
tween them. 

"But  yesterday  you  did  not  even  look  at  me." 


INVENTOR  OR  PIRATE  27 

/ 

"And  maybe  I  shan't  tomorrow."  She  laughed 
at  him  with  an  airy  sauciness.  She  had  a  way  of 
turning  in  her  lower  lip  when  she  laughed  and 
showing  her  white  teeth. 

This  holding  converse  with  a  girl  was  entertain- 
ing. She  said  things  one  did  not  expect — it  was 
quite  different  from  talking  to  a  boy — and  after 
she  had  said  them  it  was  really  pleasant  to  think 
of  what  she  had  said. 

"And,"  she  asserted,  "I  didn't  know  whether 
you  were  nice." 

"Did  you  find  out?"  he  demanded,  eagerly. 

She  shrugged  her  shoulders  and  made  a  funny 
face  at  him,  which  made  him  burst  out  laughing. 
It  was  easy  to  get  acquainted  with  a  girl — and  he 
could  not  help  thinking  all  the  time  how  different 
a  girl  was  from  a  boy. 

After  this  his  vacation  was  not  so  tiring  as  it 
had  been.  The  next  day  he  put  on  his  blue  bath- 
ing suit,  which  was  cut  just  like  hers  and  was  the 
same  color  except  that  hers,  from  many  immer- 
sions in  the  sea,  had  turned  a  blue-green  just  like 
the  ocean  itself.  At  first  he  was  greatly  chagrined 
that  she  could  swim  and  dive  through  the  waves, 
while  he  could  only  stand  and  let  the  salt  water 
break  over  him  and  impregnate  his  whole  system, 
starting  with  his  nasal  passages  and  his  ears,  with 


28  THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

stinging  brine.  But  soon  he  learned  to  swim  and 
dive  a  little  himself  and  was  able  to  uphold  his 
self-respect. 

They  spent  almost  all  the  hours  of  sunshine 
bathing  in  the  ocean,  running  up  and  down  the 
beach,  and  digging  in  the  sand.  Sometimes  he 
would  excavate  a  large  hole  and  bury  her  com- 
pletely until  only  her  head  showed.  But  she  did 
not  allow  this  often,  for  it  usually  ended  by  his 
taking  advantage  of  her  helplessness  to  tickle  her 
lips  with  a  wisp  of  sedge  grass,  which,  while  it  in- 
creased his  enjoyment  of  the  situation  greatly, 
made  her  furiously  angry. 

She  invariably  evened  up  the  score,  however, 
when  they  were  in  the  water,  where  she  was  mas- 
ter, and  could  duck  him  until  he  promised  better 
behavior  in  the  future. 

There  was  one  enjoyable  occurrence,  however, 
for  which  she  was  never  able  to  quite  get  even. 
They  had  a  game  which  consisted  of  seeing  how 
far  each  one  of  them  could  walk  blindfolded  along 
the  edge  of  the  surf  without  getting  into  the 
water;  and  one  day  when  she  was  carefully  mak- 
ing this  experiment,  he  seized  a  paint  pot  and 
brush  with  which  Starkwether  had  been  painting 
a  boat  on  the  beach,  and  while  she  was  at  the  dis- 


INVENTOR  OR  PIRATE  29 

advantage  of  not  being  able  to  see  painted  her  bare 
feet  a  robin's-egg  blue. 

The  ultimate  result  of  this  was  tremendous  and 
horrified  concern  among  all  the  adults  at  the  hotel. 
William's  popularity  could  not  possibly  have  been 
at  a  lower  ebb  than  while  all  the  various  experi- 
ments of  coal-oil,  gasoline,  tar-soap,  washing-soda, 
and  hot  water  and  vinegar  were  being  made,  and 
even  after  the  report  reached  him  that  it  was  at 
last  entirely  off,  he  was  still  frowned  upon  by  all 
adults  and  great  care  was  taken  to  make  him  feel 
the  enormity  of  his  crime.  Even  Ruth  herself 
(Ruth  Dunbar  being  the  full  name  of  the  object 
of  these  delicate  attentions)  snubbed  him  until 
three  o'clock  the  following  day,  and  then,  becom- 
ing bored  at  maintaining  such  a  heroic  pose,  gave 
it  up  and  was  natural  again. 

He  felt  that  it  was  going  to  be  necessary  for 
him  to  kiss  her  before  he  left — not  that  he  had 
any  especial  desire  to  do  so,  but  that  he  understood 
it  was  the  regular,  grown-up  sort  of  thing  to  do. 
He  deemed  it  best  to  attend  to  it  so  that  if  the 
question  ever  came  up  later,  he  could  have  the 
satisfaction  of  knowing  that  nothing  had  been 
overlooked. 

Accordingly  upon  the  very  last  night  of  his  stay 


30  THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

as  they  were  walking  along  the  beach  just  before 
dark,  she  in  her  white,  beautiful  frock,  he  caught 
her  by  the  shoulders.  Not  resenting  this  sort  of 
romping,  she  pushed  him  from  her  with  both  warm 
hands  on  his  breast,  whispering : 

"Billy,  don't  tear  me." 

The  "me"  meant  only  the  dress.  He  remem- 
bered the  words  long  after,  in  a  half-regretful  fu- 
ture, but  then  he  thought  only  of  his  masterful 
resolve  and  kissed  her  upon  her  lips — to  be  sorry 
for  it  immediately  after.  As  for  her,  her  smile 
disappeared,  and,  breaking  from  him,  she  hurried 
to  the  hotel. 

When  he  left  in  the  morning  she  was  not  there 
to  bid  him  good-bye.  He  thought  then  and  often 
later  that  one  sometimes  pays  too  highly  for  fol- 
lowing the  customs  of  the  world. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE    LADDER    OF    FAME 

From  the  time  William  was  twelve  until  he  was 
sixteen,  his  education  was  taken  care  of  at  an  ex- 
clusive and  therefore  expensive  boarding  school. 
His  father  wished  him  to  have  all  the  advantages 
of  education  that  he  himself  had  not  enjoyed  and 
to  have  the  opportunity  of  meeting  the  right  kind 
of  companions,  in  order  that  he  might  turn  out  to 
be  a  man  finished  in  every  respect.  He  wished  his 
son  to  have  no  handicaps — such  as  had  been  his. 
In  his  own  modest  appraisal  of  himself  he  missed 
altogether  the  fact  that  it  was  the  handicaps  and 
the  striving  against  them  that  had  made  him  effi- 
cient and  successful;  and,  while  he  believed  that 
chivalry  in  one's  heart  was  more  valuable  than 
mere  chivalry  of  manner,  he  hoped  that  mingling 
with  children  who  had  been  well-bred  would  in- 
still this  latter  in  his  son,  because  it  was  considered 
desirable  by  the  world  at  large. 

In  the  years  William  spent  with  these  boys  and 
in  the  visits  to  their  homes,  he  learned  the  things 

31 


32  THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

it  was  proper  to  do  and  proper  to  say  on  certain 
occasions.  He  learned  from  them  that  it  was  not 
good  form  to  be  backward  and  shy;  one  must  al- 
ways be  at  ease.  He  discovered  that  they  had 
absorbed  this  idea  so  well  that  on  most  occasions 
they  were  abnormally  self-possessed  and  self-asser- 
tive. For  the  rest  they  had  not  been  taught,  or  at 
any  rate  had  imperfectly  learned,  the  considera- 
tions of  unselfishness,  obedience,  perseverance  and 
the  homely  virtues  which  his  own  parents  had  re- 
garded as  paramount.  And  just  as  William  had 
once  found  himself  regarding  the  rector  of  his 
mother's  church  as  old-fashioned  and  as  laying 
great  stress  upon  unessential  things,  so  now, 
steeped  in  this  atmosphere,  his  growing  and  en- 
larging mind  wondered  if  the  teachings  of  his 
youth  were  not  out  of  accord  with  the  civilization 
he  was  entering.  It  was  a  horrible  blunder  for 
him  to  say,  "Yes,  ma'am,"  and  "No,  ma'am,"  or 
"I  am  pleased  to  meet  you,"  which  were  things 
taught  to  him  as  he  had  grown  up — at  the  expense 
of  much  care  and  patience.  If  these  were  no 
longer  correct,  why  was  it  not  plausible  that  the 
puritanical  virtues  practiced  by  his  mother  and 
father  in  their  youth  were  no  longer  applicable,  or 
at  least  no  longer  indispensable? 

During  his  stay  at  this  school,  he  occasionally 


THE  LADDER  OF  FAME  33 

visited  the  homes  of  the  boys  who  were  his  friends. 
He  was  astonished  to  discover  how  unbelievably 
busy  the  parents  of  these  boys  were.  One  day 
they  would  be  home,  the  next  three  days  they 
would  be  away.  A  housekeeper,  a  butler,  or  the 
woman  whose  business  it  was  to  take  care  of  the 
correspondence  was  left  in  authority  during  these 
absences;  and  being,  or  supposing  themselves  to 
be,  too  busy  already,  they  adopted  always  the  easi- 
est course.  They  never  spoke  of  unselfishness  or 
diligence  nor  insisted  too  strongly  upon  obedience. 
They  would  say  that  the  punishment  for  stealing 
the  dessert  from  the  pantry  was  to  have  only 
bread  and  water  for  supper,  but  they  were  always 
wheedled  out  of  it.  The  strangeness  of  the  train- 
ing of  these  children  who  were  later  to  have  great 
responsibilities  thrust  upon  them — who  in  a  way 
could  be  looked  upon  as  part  of  the  great  back- 
bone of  the  nation — did  not  then  occur  to  him. 
Nor  did  he  imagine  that  the  example  thus  shown 
him  could  have  a  moulding  influence  upon  his  life. 
William  liked  best  to  go  to  the  big  country 
place  which  was  the  home  of  two  boys  named 
Wharton.  Here  there  were  tennis  courts  and 
horses  and  a  swimming  pool ;  and  when  the  coast 
was  comparatively  clear,  they  could  smuggle  out 
shot-guns  and  hunt  for  rabbits  and  squirrels. 


34  THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

There  was  a  strict  rule  laid  down  to  the  effect 
that  they  were  by  no  means  to  have  the  guns — 
which  Lent  a  flavor  to  the  escapade  it  could  not 
otherwise  have  had. 

It  was  at  this  place  he  had  a  surprising  and  dis- 
turbing experience.  On  one  occasion,  by  some  in- 
advertence, the  boys  were  allowed  to  come  home  at 
a  time  when  their  mother  was  giving  an  important 
lawn  party,  and  William,  quite  without  the  moth- 
er's knowledge,  was  brought  along.  This  was  a 
piece  of  ill-fortune  for  Mrs.  Wharton,  for  she  was 
having  enough  responsibility  without  the  added 
one  of  corralling  the  children  and  keeping  them 
from  the  mischief  that  inevitably  followed  in  their 
wake.  She  thought  she  had  solved  the  problem, 
however,  by  providing  them  with  money  to  defray 
their  expenses  to  a  ball  game  in  a  nearby  town. 
But  the  boys,  scenting  the  fact  that  they  were  not 
wanted,  remained — in  hiding. 

They  had  heard  much  conversation  about  the 
"aesthetic"  dancer  who  was  to  appear  in  the  open 
air  theatre  that  had  just  been  finished,  and  as  noth- 
ing better  suggested  itself  to  them,  they  hid  them- 
selves in  the  hedge  behind  the  stage.  ^Esthetic 
dancing  was  then  new,  and  William  did  not  know 
that  the  strange  term  meant  bare  feet  and  that 
the  term  feet  covered  the  zone  from  one's  toes  to 


THE  LADDER  OF  FAME  35 

one's  knees  or  thereabouts.  When  the  lady  ap- 
peared thus  he  was  covered  with  confusion  and 
embarrassment.  But  to  his  surprise  the  throng  of 
spectators  before  her  were  not  disturbed — on  the 
contrary  they  applauded  her  wildly.  Yet  he  had 
always  been  taught  that  it  was  wrong  to  appear 
in  public  undressed. 

His  companions  were  not  disturbed  either  and 
soon  proved  that  they  were  prepared  to  obtain 
enjoyment  out  of  even  the  dullest  of  perform- 
ances. They  were  but  a  few  yards  behind  the 
graceful  figure,  whose  shining  limbs  moved  rhyth- 
mically to  a  pleasant,  dreamy  waltz,  played  by  an 
orchestra  hidden,  as  were  the  boys,  by  foliage. 
The  inspiration  that  came  to  the  latter  was  this. 
Each  put  a  little  lead  shot  between  his  teeth  and 
using  as  a  catapult  a  toothpick  obtained  at  a  res- 
taurant the  day  before,  ejected  the  shot  with  great 
force  from  his  mouth  in  the  direction  of  the 
dancer.  It  was  difficult  at  first  to  get  the  range, 
but  when  this  was  obtained  the  results  were  im- 
mediately discernible.  As  the  papers  said  the 
next  day,  the  lady's  technique  became  jerky  and 
spasmodic.  And,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  her 
third  number  was  to  have  been  the  "  Spirit  of 
June,"  her  best  known  effort,  she  omitted  it,  giv- 
ing as  her  excuse  that  the  mosquitoes  were  annoy- 


36  THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

ing  her — although  it  would  not  have  been  illogical 
to  suppose  that  that  fact  would  have  assisted  her 
in  such  an  interpretation.  It  was  a  bitter  disap- 
pointment to  her  hidden  and  appreciative  audience 
that  she  did  not  return,  for  they  had  just 
learned  their  art,  and  they  had  many  lead  pellets 
left. 

This  had  been  joyous.  But  when  the  excite- 
ment of  the  interesting  episode  had  worn  off,  Wil- 
liam found  himself  again  reverting  to  the  dis- 
turbed state  of  mind  caused  by  the  appearance  of 
the  lady  almost  unclothed  before  so  many  people, 
and  by  the  fact  that  those  people  had  considered 
such  an  occurrence  as  proper  and  appropriate. 
The  growing-up  and  broadening-out  process  in 
William's  mind  had  caused  him  to  learn  and  ac- 
cept as  right  many  things  which  he,  emerging  from 
the  chrysalis  of  childhood,  had  previously  believed 
were  wrong.  He  was  spreading  his  butterfly 
wings  to  gain  a  big  view  of  the  world  and  finding 
in  the  big  world  things  were  viewed  differently. 
Here  were  persons  whom  he  respected  and  ad- 
mired who  by  their  presence  and  approval  silently 
asserted  that  it  could  not  be  immodest  for  a  lady 
to  wear  as  clothing  chiefly  a  piece  of  thin  material 
that  looked  like  a  veil.  It  was  all  a  part  of  the 


THE  LADDER  OF  FAME  37 

modelling  of  his  mind.  He  explained  to  himself 
that  these  persons  were  taking  a  broader  view  of 
life. 

He  did  not  realize  then  how  great  a  remodelling 
was  going  on  in  his  mind.  He  did  not  realize  that 
he  was  changing  his  point  of  view  to  fit  a  new 
generation — a  generation  that  was  changing  the 
point  of  view  of  the  whole  nation; — to  a  broader 
state  of  mind,  but  to  a  more  leisurely  and  irrespon- 
sible one. 

It  was  not  easy  for  him  to  accept  the  testimony 
of  even  such  a  multitude  and  apply  it  against  his 
father's  teachings,  for  his  father  was  the  person  in 
the  world  whose  good  intentions  he  respected  most. 
When  he  was  with  him  his  father's  code  of  abso- 
lute goodness  in  every  detail  seemed  just  and  rea- 
sonable. But  he  was  an  impressionable  boy,  and 
most  of  his  influences  were  outside  his  father's 
house.  The  code  outside  his  father's  house  he 
found  to  be  an  insistence  upon  goodness,  decency 
and  honesty  wherever  the  lack  of  these  things 
produced  actual  visible  harm.  Otherwise  they 
viewed  things  broadly.  For  instance,  they  had 
virtually  repealed  the  Fourth  Commandment. 

They  had  the  advantage  over  his  father,  for 
they  could  be  very  logical  and  convincing  about  it, 
while  Mr.  Spade's  case  depended  solely  upon  the 


38  THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

deep  conviction  in  his  heart.  But  William  felt 
that  his  companions  were  modern  and  broad  of 
mind.  Unconsciously  he  adopted  their  leisurely 
sense  of  irresponsibility. 

The  greatest  argument  in  his  father's  favor  was 
his  success  in  life.  His  inventions  had  enabled 
his  firm  to  take  a  foremost  place  in  the  manufac- 
turing world,  and  yet  the  details  of  his  business  he 
trusted  implicitly  to  his  partner,  knowing  that  his 
partner  ought  to  be  as  honest  and  scrupulously  fair 
as  he  himself  was.  On  that  account  he  seemingly 
got  in  return  nothing  but  honesty  and  unscrupu- 
lous fairness. 

When  William  was  seventeen  he  passed  his  en- 
trance examination;  and  in  the  following  fall  en- 
tered college.  It  was  understood  that  when  he 
graduated  he  was  to  have  a  place  in  his  father's 
office.  Mr.  Simpson  strongly  urged  sending  the 
boy  to  college,  and  Mr.  Spade,  who  had  the  deep- 
est respect  for  his  partner's  sagacity,  readily 
agreed  with  him,  especially  since  that  had  always 
been  his  ambition.  Therefore  the  fact  that  the 
business  did  not  need  a  college  education  for  prep- 
aration to  it,  but  rather  several  years  in  the  shops 
themselves,  was  set  aside  and  the  boy  sent  to 
college. 

College  was  a  Utopia  to  him — an  ever-chang- 


THE  LADDER  OF  FAME  39 

ing,  iridescent  dream.  His  was  the  happy- 
spirited,  optimistic,  dynamic  personality  that  the 
undergraduates  regard  as  their  own  personal  prop- 
erty. Freshman  though  he  was,  there  seemed  to 
be  a  niche  already  prepared  for  him.  Whenever 
there  was  a  rowdy  demonstration  in  his  dormitory 
house  and  a  mellow  bubbling  laugh  rose  above  the 
din,  someone — Sophomore,  Junior  or  Senior — 
would  say,  "There  is  that  Spade  boy."  Some- 
times Sophomores  would  visit  him  in  his  room,  in 
punishment  for  his  effervescent  spirits,  and  make 
him  sit  in  a  china  wash-bowl  in  the  garb  nature 
provided  him  with  and  row  with  matchsticks,  or 
similarly  attired,  lie  on  the  floor  and  give  an  imi- 
tation of  a  man  swimming  to  save  a  companion 
from  drowning. 

But  when  he  attained  the  dignity  of  the  posi- 
tion as  quarterback  on  the  Freshman  Eleven  he 
was  felt  to  have  earned  the  right  to  the  pursuit  of 
happiness,  even  though  a  Freshman,  and  his  laugh 
could  be  as  mellow  and  bubbling  as  he  chose  to 
make  it,  and  no  one  disturbed  him. 

He  found  the  carnival  spirit  of  the  place  to  his 
liking.  The  free-and-easy  life,  the  close  compan- 
ionship of  men  fired  with  the  enthusiasm  of  youth, 
the  absence  of  responsibility  save  for  the  honor  of 
the  college,  the  heroic  frenzy  of  patriotism  with 


40  THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

which  they  defended  that  honor — all  made  the 
world  seem  a  rosy  and  glorious  place. 

He  fell  in  with  the  undergraduate  doctrine  of 
the  non-seriousness  of  life.  Instead  of  gathering 
up  energy  and  power  for  use  in  the  big  drive  that 
was  to  come  after  graduation,  the  providing  of 
which  is  theoretically  the  purpose  of  a  university, 
the  undergraduates  regarded  their  life  in  college  as 
a  separate  problem  to  which  their  energies  were  to 
be  devoted  exclusively.  The  world  without  they 
refused  to  understand.  They  would  attack  that 
as  a  problem  when  they  came  to  it. 

He  soon  learned  that  the  epithet  "grind"  was  a 
term  of  deep  reproach.  The  midnight-oil  stu- 
dent, who  professed  to  have  a  vision  beyond  the 
mists  that  shrouded  commencement  day,  was  a 
creation  not  understood  by  the  average  citizen  of 
the  University.  He  was  deliberately  different 
from  the  crowd.  College  tradition,  customs, 
habits,  attire  were  of  no  importance  to  such  a  man, 
and  this  closed  up  every  avenue  of  understanding 
between  him  and  his  fellows.  The  undergraduate 
body  (a  majestic  and  potent  term)  regarded  the 
grind  as  a  man  who  had  sold  his  birthright  for  a 
mess  of  pottage, — the  birthright  being  his  youth 
and  the  pottage  being  the  approbation  of  his  pro- 
fessors and  a  little  bit  of  knowledge. 


THE  LADDER  OF  FAME  41 

Therefore  the  natural  human  willingness  to 
slight  study  and  hard  work  was  given  apparently 
legitimate  excuse  and  encouragement.  Everyone 
wished  to  enjoy  the  spirit  of  college  life,  which 
he  would  see  but  once,  and  no  one  wished 
to  be  pointed  out  as  a  mere  narrow-minded 
student. 

This  was  the  training  he  received  to  enable  him 
to  meet  the  buffets  of  the  world.  Its  fortifying 
nature  was  doubtful.  It  was  like  training  for  a 
footrace  by  riding  about  in  an  automobile. 

"  The  trouble  with  this  college  life,"  his  father 
would  say,  "  is  that  there  is  no  striving  against 
adversity.  You  live  under  a  sort  of  anaesthetic, 
and  the  troubles  of  this  world  go  on  without  your 
being  conscious  of  them.  When  I  was  a  young 
man  I  had  to  fight  for  my  foothold.  You  young 
men  simply  taste  the  sugar-coating  of  life  and 
never  know  the  bitterness  deeper  in.  Now,  I  say, 
which  is  the  better  training*?" 

But  William,  confronted  with  this  theorem, 
only  half  admitted  the  truth  of  it.  It  is  the  man 
well  along  in  life's  journey  who  is  convinced,  in 
his  heart,  of  the  worth  of  adversity.  No  young 
man,  full  of  joy,  physical  strength  and  well-being, 
wishes  to  court  hardships  for  the  good  it  will  do 
his  soul. 


42  THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

"Gather  ye  rosebuds  while  ye  may."  This,  Mr. 
Spade  said,  was  the  undergraduate  motto. 

"Why  should  I  not  do  just  that4?"  William  ex- 
claimed, stoutly.  "I  must  live  my  life  as  it 
comes." 

"Live  your  life  as  it  comes,"  his  father  repeated 
gently.  "Perhaps  so." 

He  sat  down  at  his  desk  and  placed  in  a  basket 
marked  "Mr.  Simpson"  the  sheaf  of  letters  that 
lay  there.  "I  am  gathering  my  own  rosebuds 
now,"  he  said  thoughtfully. 

In  the  midst  of  events  that  followed  William 
remembered  this  speech.  His  father  seemed 
happy  indeed.  He  spent  his  days  in  perfecting 
the  work  in  the  factory,  seeing  that  no  faulty  ma- 
terial, poor  workmanship,  nor  covered  up  imper- 
fection was  permitted  to  be  shipped.  Mr.  Simp- 
son sometimes  objected,  saying  that  purchasers 
would  never  know  the  difference,  but  Mr.  Spade 
invariably  replied  that  the  aim  of  the  factory  was 
to  turn  out  the  best  workmanship  they  knew. 

When  he  was  not  in  the  factory  he  was  in  his 
own  little  shop,  where  he  had  recently  perfected 
and  obtained  a  patent  for  a  revolutionary  auto- 
mobile device — an  improvement  on  the  then  al- 
most experimental  method  of  ignition,  which 
promised  to  double  the  business  of  the  plant. 


THE  LADDER  OF  FAME  43 

The  irritating  details  of  business  his  partner  took 
from  his  shoulders.  Mr.  Spade  read  the  outgoing 
letters  only  for  the  purpose  of  seeing  that  custom- 
ers were  treated  with  his  own  idea  of  fairness. 
He  saw  only  those  customers  who  were  dissatisfied 
with  Simpson's  hard-headed  dealing  with  their 
complaints  and  who  relied  upon  Mr.  Slade's  abso- 
lute justice  and  impartiality.  On  the  whole  his 
life  was  happy  and  sheltered.  He  was  no  finan- 
cier, and  he  had  for  a  partner  a  man  who  most 
emphatically  was.  He  was  indeed  happy. 

As  for  William,  the  stir  and  excitement  of  col- 
lege life,  the  striving  after  undergraduate  honors, 
more  precious  than  fine  gold  in  the  eyes  of  his  asso- 
ciates, though,  intrinsically,  really  of  small  value, 
were  suited  to  his  temperament.  When  he  was 
awarded  the  privilege  of  wearing  the  college  "let- 
ter" upon  his  sweater,  by  reason  of  his  participa- 
tion in  one  game  upon  the  'Varsity  football  team, 
he  felt  that  he  had  reached  an  epoch  in  his  life. 
And  this  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  he  rarely  wore 
a  sweater,  and,  when  he  did,  felt  awkwardly 
flaunting  and  boastful  with  the  huge  insignia  bla- 
zoned upon  his  chest. 

Undergraduate  activities  left  him  but  little  time 
for  study,  but  since  faculty  regulations  made  it 
necessary  for  him  to  obtain  a  certain  proficiency 


44  THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

in  his  work  before  he  could  indulge  in  athletics,  he 
kept  abreast  of  his  classes,  and  in  so  doing  found 
himself  unexpectedly  interested  in  his  work. 
There  was  a  man  named  McMillan  who  gave  lec- 
tures upon  the  History  of  the  Renaissance,  illus- 
trated by  stereoptican  views.  These  ordinarily 
were  considered  as  a  rest  course,  for  a  man  could 
borrow  a  set  of  notes  from  a  last  year's  student 
and  get  the  idea  of  the  whole  thing  in  one  night 
just  before  examination.  Most  of  the  men  went 
to  sleep  in  the  comfortable  semi-darkness.  But 
William  did  not  go  to  sleep.  He  found  the  man 
full  of  ideas. 

"Spade,  don't  look  at  me  like  that,"  McMillan, 
notoriously  sarcastic,  would  say.  "You  seem  in- 
terested. It  disconcerts  me." 

This  interest  of  Spade's  was  amusing  to  the 
class,  the  more  so  as  he  sometimes  had  diverting 
discussions  with  the  preceptor,  which  the  clan  felt 
were  for  the  purpose  of  killing  time  and  were  re- 
garded as  good  pieces  of  strategy,  because  McMil- 
lan, if  he  finished  his  lecture  before  the  end  of 
the  hour,  would  hold  an  informal  and  embarrass- 
ing quiz.  One  discussion  was  memorable — espe- 
cially to  William  himself,  who  frequently  looked 
upon  it  in  after  life. 

"Gentlemen,"  said  the  lecturer  one  day,  with 


THE  LADDER  OF  FAME  45 

the  half-bored  air  he  adopted  as  suitable  to  the 
degree  of  enthusiasm  of  his  class.  "We  come 
now  to  the  Republic  of  Venice.  Venice  in  the 
lyth  and  i8th  century  saw  the  culmination  of  a 
vastly  successful  commercial  policy  and  as  a  re- 
sult entered  into  an  era  of  over-indulgence  and 
luxury,  the  fuel  for  which  was  supplied  by  the 
wealth  she  had  so  successfully  accumulated.  I 
can  point  out  to  you  all  (and  particularly  to  you, 
Mr.  Carter,  if  you  will  put  up  your  paper  and 
live  for  a  moment  in  the  eighteenth  in  lieu  of 
the  twentieth  century)  that  this  seems  to  be  the 
course  of  the  great  commercial  nations : — first,  en- 
ergy, thrift,  hard  work,/  abundance  of  mental 
effort — in  a  word,  all  the  great  virtues  coupled 
with  ambition  and  perseverance.  What  is  the 
result*?  Success,  blazoned  in  large  letters, 
wealth,  power,  happiness.  Success  begets  suc- 
cess, wealth  begets  wealth.  The  zenith  of  all 
prosperity  is  reached! 

"Then  naturally  comes  a  generation  who  have 
nothing  to  strive  for,  no  further  pinnacle  to  which 
they  can  elevate  themselves  and  their  country. 
But  they  have  money  in  great  quantities  and  time 
and  the  pursuit  of  pleasure  is  theirs.  They  buy 
every  sort  of  pleasure.  They  sacrifice  the  old  vir- 
tues. They  must  have  comfort  and  ease.  They 


46  THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

must  not  be  disturbed  by  the  seriousness  of  life. 
They  must  not  be  touched  by  adversity.  Their 
religion  must  be  mild.  Their  politics  must  be 
safe — they  must  not  be  interrupted  by  war  or 
the  rumors  of  war.  Repose  in  their  silken  bed 
of  ease  must  not  be  disturbed." 

The  man  paused,  gazing  unseeingly  at  the 
darkened  windows,  his  mind  far  away  in  the 
crowded  plaza  beside  the  grand  canal,  peopled  by 
the  purple-robed  canons  of  Saint  Mark,  the  duch- 
essa,  the  maid,  the  courtezan,  each  behind  her 
saving  mask,  the  bright  hued  gallant  of  the 
Renaissance,  seeking  what  pleasing  and  round 
limbed  lady  fair  will  touch  his  fancy,  the  music, 
the  laughter,  the  bright  eyes,  the  carnival  spirit, — 
He  rouses  himself. 

"Ah,  Mr.  Spade,  I  am  flattered.  Really  a 
question?" 

"Sir,  I  should  like  to  ask  what  other  commer- 
cial nations  you  class  with  Venice — you  spoke  of 
them  collectively." 

"Oh,  yes — I  will  name  Carthage,  Rome.  I 
might  also  mention,  if  you  will  permit  me,  the 
United  States  of  America.  Mr.  Barton,  will  you 
kindly  remember  that  the  Renaissance  means  the 
reawakening  and  govern  yourself  accordingly. 
Your  slumbers  make  me  envious." 


THE  LADDER  OF  FAME  47 

William  Spade  was  aroused. 

"I  cannot  agree  with  you  in  that  last  instance," 
he  asserted,  eagerly. 

The  room  came  to  sudden  life  and  burst  into  ap- 
plause. 

"Go  to  it,  little  one,"  they  screamed. 

"Just  a  little  order,  gentlemen,"  observed  Mc- 
Millan. "Mr.  Spade,  I  appreciate  your  interest 
and  I  understand,  I  believe,  why  you  make  that 
statement.  The  only  reply  I  can  give  to  it  is 
that,  as  I  have  said  before,  one  cannot  tell  what 
direction  the  age  he  lives  in  is  taking.  But  I 
will  say  that,  in  our  generation,  an  amazing  num- 
ber of  people  have  made  great  sums  of  money, 
and  that  our  national  wealth  is  increasing;  so  that 
hundreds  of  people  have  now  turned  their  atten- 
tion to  spending  where  there  were  but  scores  form- 
erly. As  a  nation,  we  are  beginning  to  have  leis- 
ure for  pleasures  and  money  for  luxuries.  That 
is  often  a  dangerous  sign.  I  give  you  this  for 
what  it  is  worth.  Your  own  observation  must 
complete  the  picture." 

William  was  strangely  impressed  at  this  effort 
to  scrutinize  the  age  in  which  they  lived,  with 
an  idea  of  determining  its  direction.  From  then 
on  he  found  himself  many  times  observing  the 
world  about  him,  in  an  endeavor  to  disprove  or 


48  THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

fit  in  with  -the  theory  that  the  civilization  of  his 
era  was  exchanging  momentum  and  strength  for 
ease  and  pleasure — and  discovered  it  to  be  a  far- 
spreading  problem. 

It  was  a  problem  that  spread  to  him  as  an 
individual,  but  William  did  not  recognize  this. 
It  had  not  occurred  to  him  that  his  companions 
of  the  past  six  or  eight  years — whose  influence, 
beginning  about  the  time  of  the  episode  of  the 
undressed  dancing  lady,  had  moulded  his  mind 
to  a  tolerance  of  laxity  and  irresponsibility — 
were  the  forces  to  whom  McMillan  referred. 
Nor  did  he  pause  to  think  that,  being  in  the  midst 
of  forces  tending  towards  decadence,  he  would 
naturally  be  unable  to  see  them. 

He  might  have  considered  the  matter  more 
fully  had  not  the  serenity  of  his  Junior  year 
been  marred  by  anxiety  for  his  father.  The  de- 
mand for  the  automobile  improvement  for  which 
the  elder  Spade  held  the  patent  had  been  steadily 
increasing,  and,  at  Mr.  Simpson's  suggestion,  an 
adjoining  piece  of  ground  had  been  bought  at  a 
very  large  price,  and  the  contract  let  for  an  ad- 
ditional building  in  which  the  new  device  was  to 
be  manufactured — Mr.  Simpson  being  of  the  opin- 
ion that  the  demand  would  soon  far  exceed  the 
supply. 


THE  LADDER  OF  FAME  49 

Just  as  this  irrevocable  step  had  been  taken, 
Mr.  Simpson,  who  had  never  known  a  day  of 
sickness,  retired  suddenly  to  a  sanatorium,  suf- 
fering with  what  was  described  as  a  nervous  break- 
down. His  memory  for  all  his  business  transac- 
tions was  completely  gone.  Strangely  enough,  his 
memory  for  other  matters  was  unimpaired. 

Mr.  Spade  was  distressed.  In  addition  to  his 
sorrow  at  the  condition  of  his  partner,  he  had 
thrown  upon  him  a  great  weight  of  extra  respon- 
sibility. All  that  part  of  the  management  of  the 
business  which  Simpson  had  cared  for  was  now 
increased  threefold,  by  reason  of  the  enlarged 
trade  due  to  the  new  product  and  the  huge  finan- 
cial responsibility  incurred  by  the  new  building. 
This  building  was  much  more  sumptuous  and 
expensive  than  Mr.  Spade  had  desired,  but  his 
partner  had  assured  him  that  from  an  advertising 
standpoint  it  was  money  well  spent.  But  in  go- 
ing over  the  books  of  the  company  it  became  ap- 
parent that  his  partner's  method  of  bookkeeping 
had  given  an  air  of  great  prosperity  that  was  far 
in  advance  of  the  facts.  The  large  expenditure 
for  the  new  site  and  building  was  not  at  all  well 
advised. 

In  the  midst  of  this  an  infringement  of  the 
patent  by  another  company  was  discovered,  and 


50  THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

an  expensive  suit  had  to  be  brought  against  them. 
There  seemed  to  be  no  other  solution  of  the  ques- 
tion than  for  Mr.  Spade  to  pledge  his  whole  per- 
sonal fortune  to  tide  over  the  emergency.  He 
had  only  to  hold  on  until  the  factory  was  finished 
and  the  suit  settled  and  all  would  be  plain  sail- 
ing, for  the  increasing  sales  seemed  to  point  to  the 
fact  that  as  soon  as  their  exclusive  right  to  manu- 
facture the  device  was  established  there  would  be 
a  huge  revenue  from  it.  But  meanwhile  he  hung 
on  the  narrow  edge  between  success  and  bank- 
ruptcy so  that  the  slightest  push  would  have  sent 
him  either  way. 

He  kept  the  seriousness  of  the  situation  from  his 
wife  and  son,  and,  lest  the  latter  suspect  it  and 
leave  college  to  lend  his  help,  as  the  father  feared 
he  would,  kept  up  his  allowance  exactly  as  be- 
fore. It  was  a  strain  upon  his  financial  resources. 
His  creditors  were  becoming  anxious  for  their 
money.  A  wave  of  selling  drove  down  the  value 
of  the  company's  stock  on  the  exchange.  The 
creditors  served  notice  that  unless  the  impending 
suit  was  decided  in  favor  of  Mr.  Spade  they 
would  institute  bankruptcy  proceedings.  But 
Mr.  Spade  had  no  suspicion  of  foul  play  until  he 
saw  by  the  records  that  Mr.  Simpson  had  sold  all 
his  stock  in  the  company! 


THE  LADDER  OF  FAME  51 

The  suit  was  decided  on  the  day  before  Thanks- 
giving Day;  and,  upon  Thanksgiving  Day,  in  lieu 
of  a  Thanksgiving  dinner,  Mr.  Spade  met  his 
creditors  around  a  table  upon  which  lay  no  cloth. 
And  that  day,  which  was  a  day  of  great  triumph 
for  his  son,  was  a  day  of  sternest  sorrow  for  the 
father.  The  same  sun  that  shone  across  that 
bare  table  caressing  the  thin  hair  upon  the  bowed 
head  of  William  Spade  Senior,  fell  slantwise 
across  a  white  barred  field  where  thousands  of 
people,  frenzied  with  wild  enthusiasm,  called 
upon  the  name  of  William  Spade  Junior.  The 
head  of  the  old  man — now  an  old  man  indeed — 
was  bowed  down  by  the  weight  of  this  first  great 
humiliation — unforeseen  and  undeserved.  The 
head  of  the  young  man  shone  to  twenty  thousand 
people  as  he  stood  waiting — waiting  upon  the 
threshold  of  great  triumph. 

He  stood  alone,  as  one  upon  whom  great  re- 
sponsibility rested.  Before  him — between  him 
and  the  white  goal  posts — crouched  a  double  line 
of  restive  beings.  The  shouting  upon  the  north 
side  ceased — and  upon  the  south  side.  The  great 
seething  cauldron  of  spectators  was  still.  For  an 
instant  twenty-two  men  stood  like  a  group  of 
miniature  bronze  figures.  Of  a  sudden  every- 
thing sprang  into  action.  Twenty  thousand 


52  THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

human  beings  rose  to  their  feet  in  a  great  heav- 
ing wave.  A  tiny  oval  thing  shot  from  the  mass 
of  men  to  the  hands  of  the  waiting  youth.  Half 
the  double  line  seemed  to  be  catapulted  towards 
him.  He  was  enveloped  in  a  mob.  His  brown 
head  remained  motionless,  as  in  a  surging  sea; 
and,  out  of  the  midst  of  apparent  chaos,  the  oval 
thing  shot  straight  and  true.  The  silence  gave 
way  instantly  to  a  reverberating  roar.  Over  the 
bar  went  the  ball;  and  the  twenty  thousand  lost 
their  sanity,  within  the  space  of  a  fifth  of  a  sec- 
ond. 

The  next  hour  was  a  period  of  wild,  joyous  de- 
lirium. William  lived  through  it  like  a  man  in- 
toxicated. His  journey  from  the  field  to  the 
dressing-room  door  was  upon  the  shoulders  of  a 
throng  of  hysterical  humanity.  His  last  glimpse 
through  the  door  was  of  a  field  all  a-quiver  with 
wave  after  wave  of  dancing,  brainless,  over- 
wrought youths.  The  dressing-room,  the  sanctum 
sanctorum,  was  invaded  by  the  privileged  many, 
who  swarmed  about  them  while  they  lay  upon 
their  deal  tables  to  have  the  envied  muscles 
rubbed  and  kneaded  and  smoothed  into  shape. 
Lawyers,  doctors,  and  great  men  pressed  the  boy's 
hand  with  the  air  of  making  room  for  him  too 
on  the  ladder  of  fame.  Men  whom  he  knew  only 


THE  LADDER  OF  FAME  53 

by  reading  of  them  in  the  papers  inquired  anxi- 
ously as  to  his  physical  well-being. 

At  length,  dressed  and  valeted  by  a  dozen  pairs 
of  hands,  he  made  his  way  through  the  throng  to 
the  door.  A  newsboy  in  the  corridor  without 
thrust  a  paper  eagerly  into  his  hands.  He  hast- 
ened up  the  steps  to  the  training  quarters  where 
the  members  of  the  team  and  the  coaches  were 
gathered.  It  was  a  joyful,  yet  withal  an  im- 
portant gathering,  for  they  had  a  solemn  and  im- 
portant duty  to  perform.  On  the  first  ballot  they 
conferred  upon  William  Spade  the  highest  honor 
the  University  had  to  offer  (pedagogues  and  deans 
to  the  contrary  notwithstanding) — that  of  cap- 
tain of  the  University  football  team.  Let  Dis- 
tinguished Service  Orders  and  Victoria  Crosses 
dim  their  light  upon  this  great  glory! 

While  the  ballot  was  being  taken  William 
looked  steadily  at  his  paper,  his  heart  beating 
excitedly.  Then  suddenly  it  seemed  to  stop — 
and  something  rose  in  his  throat.  When  they 
announced  his  name  he  stood  up — dazed  as  though 
someone  had  struck  him  a  blow. 

"I  am  sorry,"  he  said — and  it  seemed  that  his 
voice  would  not  last  until  he  had  said  it  all — 
"that  I  cannot  accept.  I — am  leaving  the  Uni- 
versity— immediately." 


54  THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

Before  anyone  could  speak  he  was  gone.  They 
did  not  follow,  for  they  saw  the  headlines  of  his 
paper  lying  there  upon  the  table.  It  was  ex- 
planation enough.  The  cold  type,  blandly  in- 
human, continued  to  assert  with  exaggerated  in- 
difference the  perfectly  good  news  item  that  the 
Spade  patent  had  been  declared  invalid,  and  that 
in  consequence  thereof  William  Spade,  Senior, 
was  a  bankrupt. 


CHAPTER  III 

ADVENTURE 

The  months  following  the  failure  were  dismal 
ones  in  the  Spade  house.  The  Spade  house  no 
longer  meant  the  big  house  with  its  rugs,  its  pic- 
tures, its  curtains  and  its  mahogany  furniture — 
it  meant  the  little  house  in  the  narrow  street, 
where  William  was  born.  The  humiliation  of 
his  failure  and  the  worry  lest  his  creditors  should 
not  be  paid  in  full  had  driven  the  smile  from 
Mr.  Spade's  face  and  had  substituted  for  it  fur- 
rows between  his  brows.  Young  William  would 
frequently  surprise  him  sitting  with  his  papers 
lying  beside  him,  gazing  idly  and  unseeing  be- 
fore him.  It  would  be  necessary  to  speak  twice 
to  rouse  him  from  his  lethargy. 

It  was  soon  discovered  that  Mr.  Simpson  had 
been  the  chief  factor  in  his  downfall.  Mr.  Simp- 
son permitted  it  presently  to  be  known  that  he 
owned  the  controlling  interest  in  the  plant  that 
was  purveying  the  duplicate  of  the  Spade  patent. 
The  decision  of  the  court  in  regard  to  the  patent 

55 


56  THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

was  all  that  was  necessary  to  effect  his  complete 
recovery  from  the  malady  that  had  laid  hold  of 
him.  He  took  charge  of  the  new  company  im- 
mediately. 

Mr.  Spade  then  understood.  When  the  patent 
had  been  granted,  he  had  told  his  partner,  trusting 
the  man  implicitly,  that  he  had  just  found  an 
article  in  a  French  engineering  magazine  which 
described  vaguely  a  device  similar  to  his.  The 
astute  Simpson  made  a  note  of  the  date  of  the 
magazine.  This  was  weapon  enough  for  him.  It 
gave  him  an  almost  certain  chance  of  proving 
that  his  partner's  idea  was  not  an  original  one, 
and  therefore  not  patentable. 

With  this  in  view  he  had  set  about  forming  a 
new  company  and,  when  this  was  formed  had  had 
it  openly  put  the  Spade  device  upon  the  market, 
inviting  prosecution.  To  a  fair-minded  person^ 
it  was  an  unnecessarily  severe  way  of  obtaining 
an  advantage  for  one's  self.  But  Simpson,  whose 
natural  way  was  the  way  of  adroitness  and  stealth, 
had  long  been  irked  by  his  partner's  straightfor- 
wardness, which  prevented  him  from  increasing 
his  profits  as  he  would  have  desired.  Previously 
he  had  been  bound  by  the  fact  that  Spade  owned 
the  precious  patents  that  were  the  life  of  the  firm. 
But  here  had  been  a  chance  to  leave,  and  take  with 


ADVENTURE  57 

him  an  invention  worth  as  much  as  all  the  others 
combined.  It  was  true  that  it  gave  him  no  mon- 
opoly; but  he  had  a  long  start  on  all  other  com- 
petitors. 

Figuring  shrewdly  that  the  expense  of  the  law- 
suit and  of  the  large  plant  he  had  persuaded  his 
partner  to  build  would  cripple  the  latter  to  such 
an  extent  that  he  would  be  unable  to  conduct  the 
selling  and  advertising  campaign  that  would  be 
necessary,  he  knew  that  he  would  have  little  to 
fear  from  Chat  quarter.  For  the  others,  by  the 
time  they  had  built  plants  and  installed  the  neces- 
sary machinery,  he  would  have  had  a  year's  start 
of  them  and  the  prestige  he  would  have  built  up 
in  that  time  would  never  be  equalled.  No  defi- 
nite charge  of  fraud  could  ever  be  brought  against 
him,  even  had  Mr.  Spade  the  money  to  prosecute 
such  a  suit.  He  had  disposed  of  his  former  part- 
ner completely. 

This  turmoil  in  the  father's  affairs  had  made  a 
similar  turmoil  in  the  affairs  of  the  son.  From 
having  a  career  definitely  laid  out  before  him,  he 
suddenly,  without  warning,  found  himself  face  to 
face  with  the  necessity  of  deciding  at  once  what 
his  future  course  was  to  be. 

In  the  hope  of  finding  an  opening  for  himself 
he  at  length  visited  a  man  named  Barry,  who  was 


58  THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

a  congressman  for  his  district.  Barry  was  a  mem- 
ber of  the  same  fraternity  as  William  and  they 
had  had  several  conversations  upon  the  occasion 
of  the  congressman's  visits  to  the  University,  upon 
one  of  which  the  latter  had  assured  William  that 
he  must  call  upon  him  if  there  was  ever  any  serv- 
ice his  official  position  might  make  it  possible  for 
him  to  render.  This  is  the  sort  of  thing  con- 
gressmen usually  say  for  the  sake  of  effect,  but 
William  believed  the  man  meant  it,  and  wrote  him 
a  letter  telling  him  of  the  difficulty  he  was  in. 

In  return  Barry  sent  him  a  note  inviting  him 
to  lunch  at  his  club.  He  heard  the  story  of  the 
failure  through  to  the  end  without  comment. 

"I  knew  your  father  very  well  by  reputation," 
he  said,  at  length.  "And  the  only  fault  I  have  to 
find  with  him  is  that  he  was  a  gentleman  of  the 
old  school." 

"What  do  you  mean  by  that?" 

"I  mean  he  wasn't  aware  of  the  repeal  of  the 
Golden  Rule — or  at  least  of  certain  stern  amend- 
ments to  it.  He  relied  upon  his  friends  to  be 
just  as  fair  as  he  was  and — well,  the  long  and 
short  of  it  is,  that  won't  do.  We  are  in  a  new  era. 
We  have  a  new  code  of  morals,  a  new  code  of  busi- 
ness. Commercial  transactions  have  become  so 
complicated  that  the  old  rules  of  morals  do  not 


ADVENTURE  59 

cover  them.  I  do  not  defend  Simpson.  Far 
from  it.  But  at  the  same  time  we  must  recognize 
the  tighter,  stricter,  simpler  rules  of  business.  It 
will  not  do  to  rely  upon  the  other  fellow's  chiv- 
alry. That  is  lost  motion,  and  puts  a  variable 
factor  in  the  equation.  Hard  and  fast  rules  and 
strict  adherence  to  them — that's  business.  Every- 
one has  to  play  the  game  according  to  the  rules 
and  take  care  of  his  own  scalp.  At  the  same  time 
I  say  this  without  criticism  of  your  father,  for 
whom  I  have  the  deepest  respect." 

William  nodded.  "You  say,"  he  asked,  curi- 
ously, "we  are  in  a  new  era*?" 

"An  era  in  which  our  national  prosperity  has 
become  so  gigantic  as  to  be  actually  cumbersome. 
We  are  making  complicated  laws  in  a  frantic  en- 
deavor to  govern  what  the  newspapers  refer  to  as 
big  business.  And  all  that  it  means  is  that  there 
is  so  much  money  in  the  country  and  so  many 
opportunities  for  making  more  money  that  we 
have  to  devise  one-foot-in-the-trough  rules  to  give 
everybody  a  chance." 

To  William,  having  no  money,  the  fact  that 
there  might  be  too  much  money  in  the  world  pre- 
sented itself  as  no  calamity.  The  thought  of  the 
mad  scramble  after  riches  at  any  price  did  not  stir 
indignation  in  him.  He  even  failed  to  see  that 


60  THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

the  triumph  of  Simpson  over  his  father  was  the 
triumph  of  a  new  bloodless  efficiency  over  an  old- 
time  honesty  and  fairness.  His  father  had  been 
dull  and  a  little  too  trusting,  to  be  sure,  but  he 
had  paid  the  world  the  compliment  of  believing 
that  human  kindness  still  existed. 

Barry  at  length  said  he  knew  of  a  position  in  a 
street  railway  company  in  Washington,  which  he 
felt  sure  he  could  obtain  for  William,  if  he  wished 
to  try  it  out.  It  was  not  a  very  important  or 
lucrative  place,  but  if  he  turned  out  well  there 
might  be  opportunities  for  advancement — espe- 
cially if  he  had  friends.  As  Barry  said,  night 
clerk  in  a  car-barn  was  a  humble  beginning,  but 
wherever  he  went  he  would  have  to  put  his  foot  on 
the  lowest  rung  of  the  ladder.  William  had  some 
time  before  come  to  this  conclusion,  so  he  said 
without  much  hesitation  that  if  the  other  could 
get  him  the  place,  he  would  take  it. 

As  a  result  some  ten  days  later  he  found  himself 
reporting  at  a  remote  car-barn  in  the  District  of 
Columbia,  with  his  midnight  lunch  under  his  arm. 
His  duties  were  not  complicated.  He  had  to  re- 
ceive the  money  from  the  car  conductors  as  they 
finished  work,  pay  the  motorman  and  conductor 
their  day's  wages  out  of  it,  take  care  of  articles 
found  on  the  cars,  answer  the  telephone,  and  be 


ADVENTURE  61 

general  office  man.  From  two  until  five-thirty  no 
cars  ran,  but  it  took  him  a  good  part  of  this  time 
to  make  up  his  report  and  get  his  cash  to  balance. 

His  salary  was  small,  and  he  had  to  live  in  an 
extremely  modest  boarding-house,  whose  bill  of 
fare  it  would  never  have  been  necessary  to  print, 
for  one  always  became  aware  of  it  the  instant  one 
opened  the  front  door,  as  if  all  the  various  culi- 
nary odors  had  been  hung  up  on  the  hall  hatrack. 

After  he  had  become  familiar  with  the  simple 
duties  of  his  position,  the  almost  unvarying  rou- 
tine became  monotonous.  At  the  end  of  six  or 
eight  months,  he  decided  that  it  would  add  a  little 
interest  to  his  life  if  he  had  a  secondary  means  of 
earning  money.  He  had  noticed  that  while  many 
of  the  men  about  him  had  large  families  and  on 
account  of  their  small  salaries  were  able  to  save 
very  little  for  an  emergency,  few  of  them  carried 
life  insurance.  An  opportunity  was  open  here — 
and  in  a  small  way  he  began  to  write  life  insur- 
ance. His  direct,  reasonable  talk  made  him  fairly 
successful.  He  made  use  of  his  modest  earnings 
to  join  an  inexpensive  coun try-club,  where  he  man- 
aged to  keep  himself  in  trim  with  tennis.  Also 
he  sometimes  met  here  men  who  thought  favorably 
of  the  idea  of  having  their  lives  insured.  The  life 
he  was  leading  was  a  strange  existence.  It  seemed 


62  THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

as  if  he  were  some  other  person — a  person  entirely 
different  from  himself,  who  slept  in  the  daytime, 
who  ate  one  meal  from  a  paper  bag  and  the  other 
two  from  a  marble  slab  in  a  quick  lunch  room 
and  who  was  a  hermit,  having  no  friends  at 
all. 

The  people  he  knew  in  Washington  who  would 
have  been  congenial  acquaintances,  he  did  not  call 
upon,  for  he  foresaw  that  he  would  have  to  refuse 
all  invitations,  since  other  people  enjoyed  them- 
selves at  hours  when  he  was  working.  His  work 
therefore  had  to  be  his  recreation  also. 

When  fall  came  they  made  preparations  to  send 
a  gang  along  the  road  to  fix  all  the  places  where 
the  wire  connections  between  the  rails  had  come 
loose.  William,  remembering  a  certain  discovery 
he  happened  to  make  the  winter  before,  told  the 
superintendent  that  if  he  would  wait  until  the  first 
light  snow  he  would  show  him  how  to  save  time. 
The  superintendent  waited,  and  when  the  snow 
came,  William  went  out  on  the  road  in  the  work- 
car  and  showed  them  that  wherever  the  track  con- 
nection was  broken,  the  heat  generated  by  the  cur- 
rent as  it  jumped  the  gap  between  melted  the 
snow  at  that  point.  In  this  way  they  did  in  a  half 
a  day  what  it  had  formerly  taken  the  whole  sec- 
tion gang  several  days  to  do. 


ADVENTURE  63 

His  main  amusement,  now  that  it  was  too  late 
for  tennis,  was  walking.  After  ia  good  day  of 
sleep,  he  would  have  his  afternoon  tea,  consisting 
of  eggs,  coffee  and  griddle  cakes,  and  set  out  for  a 
long  walk  into  the  country  or  through  the  park. 
On  one  of  these  occasions,  upon  a  rather  unfre- 
quented road,  he  came  into  sight  of  a  girl  standing 
before  a  big  roadster,  which  sat  still  and  contented 
by  the  roadside. 

"I'm  willing  to  bet,"  he  confided  to  himself 
(this  person  being  the  man  with  whom  he  carried 
on  most  of  his  conversations  now),  "that  she  has 
an  electric  system  in  that  car  that  runs  a  fireless 
cooker,  self-starter,  curling  iron,  and  sometimes 
the  electric  lights ;  and  it's  all  out  of  whack — with 
help  twenty  miles  away." 

He  stopped  when  he  came  abreast  of  the  car. 

"I'm  in  trouble,"  the  girl  said. 

He  glanced  at  all  four  tires  and  found  none  of 
them  flat.  Then  he  looked  curiously  at  her — the 
thing  he  had  wanted  to  do  first — and  found  a 
good-looking  young  person,  with  handsome  eyes 
and  a  rich,  clear  complexion.  She  took  his  glance 
to  be  a  question. 

"I  am  sure  I  don't  know  what  the  matter  is," 
she  said,  by  way  of  reply. 

He  knew  the  type  of  car,  for  he  had  driven  one 


64  THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

many  times.  He  punched  on  the  lights  and  tried 
the  self-starter  and  decided  at  length  that  her  elec- 
tric system  was  in  working  order.  In  making  this 
decision,  however,  he  placed  a  great  deal  of  weight 
upon  the  fact  that  the  automobile  was  practically 
new. 

"I  never  saw  a  car  like  this  that  wouldn't  run  if 
it  had  gasoline  in  the  tank,"  he  observed,  smiling. 

"Now  don't  tell  me — "  she  began,  and  broke  off 
to  walk  to  the  back  of  the  machine.  The  gasoline 
tank  proved  to  be  quite  empty. 

"I  hide  my  head  in  shame,"  she  exclaimed. 

"It's  over  a  mile  to  the  next  drop  of  gasoline," 
he  said,  comfortingly.  He  had  walked  so  many 
times  on  the  road  that  he  knew  the  geography  of 
it  by  heart. 

"In  that  case  I'll  walk  there  and  have  someone 
bring  gasoline  back  to  the  car." 

"If  we  could  get  the  machine  to  the  top  of  that 
hill,  I  believe  we  could  coast  all  the  way,"  he  sug- 
gested. 

There  was  down  grade  about  fifteen  or  twenty 
yards  ahead.  By  throwing  his  full  strength 
against  the  spokes  of  the  wheel,  he  put  the  car 
into  motion  and,  with  her  by  no  means  negligible 
assistance,  for  she  was  a  healthy  young  woman, 
they  pushed  it  to  the  top  of  the  slope.  As  the 


ADVENTURE  65 

grade  began  to  give  it  impetus,  they  leaped  aboard 
and  she  seated  herself  at  the  wheel. 

"Now  don't  put  your  foot  on  the  brake,"  he 
said.  "If  you  do  we  shall  not  get  there." 

It  was  a  hair-raising  experience.  The  car  gath- 
ered momentum  as  it  rolled  on  down  the  smooth 
macadam  road.  She  did  not  put  her  foot  upon  the 
brake,  for  when  he  saw  a  tremor  in  her  right  knee 
indicating  desire  to  cut  down  speed,  he  admon- 
ished her  with  one  word.  As  one  in  a  hypnotic 
spell  she  did  as  she  was  told.  Her  eyes  opened 
wide,  her  cheeks  flushed  with  a  fever  that  was  part 
excitement  and  part  terror.  No  record  was  left 
upon  her  consciousness  of  fields  or  fences  or  fallow 
land  upon  either  side  of  her.  The  only  spot  that 
photographed  upon  her  retina  was  the  bend  at  the 
bottom  of  the  hill,  rushing  madly  toward  her  with 
ever-increasing  speed.  Guarding  the  side  of  the 
road  at  this  spot  and,  to  her  fevered  mind,  sepa- 
rating her  from  eternity,  was  a  mere  fence.  A 
voice  at  her  ear  kept  explaining  that  it  was  neces- 
sary to  keep  up  their  speed  at  this  point  or  they 
would  never  reach  the  top  of  the  rise  beyond. 
Pride  prompted  her  to  keep  her  poise — for  she  had 
been  trained  from  early  youth  that  the  first  prin- 
ciple in  life  is  to  retain  one's  composure. 

To  the  man  beside  her,  with  a  pirate's  blood  in 


66  THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

his  veins,  this  was  an  adventure.  He  gauged  the 
distance  nicely,  perfectly  certain  that  the  turn 
could  be  made,  and  the  car  went  around  it  as  upon 
a  steel  track.  They  charged  the  next  hill,  car- 
ried impetuously  on  by  their  thundering  momen- 
tum. Up  the  slope  they  moved,  giving  speed  in 
exchange  for  distance.  Their  galloping  pace  be- 
came a  trot,  the  trot  a  walk,  the  walk  a  mere 
crawl;  and  the  wheels  just  turned  over  as  they 
rolled  toward  the  top  and  there  saw,  like  Moses 
viewing  the  Promised  Land,  the  valley  beyond. 
The  car  hung  poised  upon  the  brow  with  the 
wheels  turning  so  slowly  that  he  could  read  the 
embossed  letters  upon  their  tires.  He  leaped  out, 
putting  his  shoulder  against  the  machine,  and  like 
a  live  thing,  it  moved  and  started  again  on  its  mad 
journey. 

A  man  and  woman,  dangerously  close  together, 
strolled  in  the  middle  of  the  thoroughfare  before 
them.  But  the  occupants  of  the  car  were  stop- 
ping neither  for  love,  nor  hate  nor  any  of  the  petty 
things  of  life.  They  were  spell-bound  by  the  ex- 
hilaration of  going  down  hill.  And  down  hill 
they  went  with  leaps  and  bounds,  roaring  over  the 
wooden  bridge  at  the  foot  and  sliding  out  upon 
the  smooth  sunlit  level  below.  Here  life  took  on 
its  ordinary  proportions  again.  Instead  of  Mer- 


ADVENTURE  67 

cury  and  the  cousin  of  Jupiter  coasting  down  the 
clouds  from  Olympus,  they  became  now  merely 
two  people  riding  in  an  automobile. 

Very  normally  and  in  a  prosaic  manner  they 
rolled  along  the  road,  stopping  in  an  ordinary  way 
before  an  ordinary  store  and  requesting  the  ordi- 
nary five  gallons  of  gasoline.  And  then,  instead 
of  stealing  power  from  the  hills,  they  pulled  away 
under  their  own  fuel,  the  engine  purring  content- 
edly and  happily  once  more. 

"I  am  going  into  town,"  she  said.  "I  can  give 
you  a  lift,  if  that  is  your  destination." 

That  was  not  his  destination  at  all.  Still,  he 
accepted  her  offer. 

"You  are  an  adventurous  spirit,"  she  asserted, 
in  a  well-bred,  unemotional  way,  but  with  a  touch 
of  admiration. 

"It's  reflex." 

"What  do  you  mean1?" 

"I  live  the  life  of  a  hermit  thrush  most  of  the 
time.  Once  in  a  while  I  must  get  rid  of  excess 
energy." 

He  felt  her  curious  glance  upon  him. 

"Have  you  been  long  in  Washington*?" 

"About  a  year." 

"That  means  you  are  an  old  resident.  Why 
have  I  never  met  you*?" 


68  THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

"You  have,"  he  replied,  laughing.  "Just 
now." 

She  made  an  impatient  gesture. 

"The  real  reason,"  he  went  on,  seriously,  "is 
because  I  have  been  working.  I  have  been  learn- 
ing the  street  railway  business — a  worm's  eye 
view,  so  to  speak — from  the  very  bottom." 

"Not  as  a — motorman*?" 

"Why,  yes,"  he  replied,  amused,  seeing  that  she 
was  somewhat  aghast  at  the  idea.  But  her  ear 
was  quick  to  catch  the  note  of  banter. 

"Spoofing,"  she  accused.  And  with  just  a 
touch  of  hauteur  that  had  nothing  at  all  to  do 
with  displeasure,  but  was  merely  a  part  of  her 
smooth  composure,  she  selected,  with  a  conjurer's 
lightness  of  touch,  another  subject  of  conversation 
and  began  to  talk  to  him  in  an  easy  off-hand  way. 
He  could  not  but  admire  the  machine-like  perfec- 
tion of  her  manner.  No  one  could  have  said  that 
she  was  not  an  ornamental  creature,  and  her  pleas- 
ant, light  gossip  kept  him  amused  until  they  were 
almost  downtown. 

"Where  shall  I  set  you  down?"  she  asked.  He 
was  disconcerted  for  a  moment.  He  could  not 
ask  her  to  set  him  down  at  the  moving  picture 
theatre  on  E  street  or  at  Carrigan's  Rapid  Lunch, 


ADVENTURE  69 

which  were  the  only  places  he  frequented.  Yet 
he  must  be  going  somewhere — it  would  have  been 
too  frank  to  admit  that  he  was  driving  with  her 
simply  for  the  fun  of  continuing  an  adventure. 
So  he  mentioned  the  name  of  an  exclusive  club 
beyond  whose  portals  he  had  never  trod,  but  which 
was  near  'the  car  line  he  would  have  to  take  to  go 
to  his  work. 

He  alighted  and  thanked  her,  standing  grace- 
fully upon  the  curb,  hoping  that  she  would  drive 
away  before  he  had  to  go  up  the  steps.  But,  as  he 
had  more  than  half  suspected  she  would,  she  ar- 
ranged affairs  deftly  so  that  she  could  see  whether 
he  really  did  enter  the  club.  She  nodded  to  him 
prettily,  started  the  engine  again,  and,  as  if  cer- 
tain that  he  had  disappeared  from  her  horizon, 
leisurely  drew  on  her  gauntlet  gloves.  Seeing 
that  there  was  no  further  function  for  him  to  per- 
form standing  upon  the  street  curb,  he  faced  about 
and  hurried  up  the  steps  of  the  club.  William 
Spade  was  quite  equal  to  playing  whatever  game 
anyone  else  saw  fit  to  start.  The  door  opened 
automatically  before  him.  His  desire  was  to 
enter,  have  it  close  behind  him  and  then  inquire 
for  someone — anyone  at  all.  But  he  was  saved 
that  trouble.  Footsteps  approached  behind  him. 


70  THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

"Why,  hello,  Spade,"  called  a  familiar  voice. 

He  turned  about  and  saw  his  friend  Barry.  At 
the  same  time  the  girl's  motor  moved  slowly  away 
from  the  curb. 


CHAPTER  IV 

OPPORTUNITY 

"Rarefied  society  you  drive  with,"  was  Barry's 
comment. 

"Is  it?" 

"Don't  you  think  so?" 

"I — don't  know  the  lady's  name,"  William  con- 
fessed. 

The  congressman  glanced  at  him  admiringly. 

"Jove,  you're  a  scream,  Spade.     Come  on  in." 

William  related  the  adventure  that  led  up  to  his 
having  to  seek  assistance  at  the  door  of  the  club. 
Barry  listened  with  interest. 

"The  lady  is  named  Barclay,"  he  said,  at 
length.  "That  may  convey  something  to  you.  I 
think  her  first  name  is  Sara.  Her  father  is  Joseph 
Barclay — a  captain,  or  a  major-general  perhaps, 
of  industry.  His  specialty  is  railroads.  If  you 
held  out  your  two  hands,  I  imagine  he  could  hang 
a  million  dollars  upon  each  finger  for  you,  without 
missing  it." 

"I  know  the  big  white  house  facing  the  Circle — 
from  the  outside." 

71 


72  THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

"From  the  outside."  Barry  laughed.  "That 
brings  me  to  something  I  have  wanted  to  say  to 
you.  The  job  you  have  isn't  much  of  a  job — I'm 
sorry  I  got  it  for  you.  I  find  there  are  too  many 
people  at  the  top  in  this  street  railway  business. 
At  the  end  of  about  four  years  more,  by  a  piece  of 
luck,  the  superintendent  of  that  branch  of  the  line 
may  be  fired  or  resign,  and  you  may,  if  your  horo- 
scope lies  just  right,  be  given  the  job  of  superin- 
tendent at  a  salary  of  a  hundred  and  twenty-five 
dollars." 

He  drummed  on  the  arm  of  his  chair.  "And 
you'll  hold  that  for  at  least  ten  years  more.  In 
addition  to  that,  it  is  one  of  those  infected  jobs." 

"Infected?" 

"Yes.  Your  friends  receive  you  with  open 
arms — just  the  same  as  they  would  if  you  had 
leprosy.  That  is  the  strange  thing  about  our  so- 
cial code.  We  have  queer  criterions.  A  young 
man  who  works  in  a  bank  may  go  anywhere  if  he 
behaves  himself  and  is  fairly  attractive.  But  a 
young  man  working  in  a  jewelry  store  or  in  a 
garage  may  not.  Yet  those  three  positions  are  all 
similar — in  that  they  render  service,  and  in  almost 
an  equal  degree,  to  the  moneyed  classes." 

"But  the  job  of  the  boy  in  the  bank  comes  under 
the  head  of  'financial.'  " 


OPPORTUNITY  73 

"Right.  That's  the  solution.  Banker,  broker, 
stock  manipulator,  Wall  Street — those  are  the 
magic  words.  The  fonts  of  gold,  you  know. 
This  is  an  age  that  requires  money.  But,  to  re- 
turn to  what  I  started  out  to  say,  you  must  give 
up  your  job.  Get  into  something  that  looks  right 
and  meet  people  of  the  class  you  have  been  accus- 
tomed to  meet." 

"But  that  is  not  a  profession." 

"It  is,  if  you  keep  your  eyes  open." 

William  pondered  over  this. 

"You  mean  I  should  attempt  to  marry  Miss 
Barclay,  or  one  similar,  and  thus  feather  the 
nest"?"  he  demanded,  at  length. 

"Not  necessarily.  Although  that  would  be  de- 
sirable. You  might  confine  your  attention  en- 
tirely to  men — if  you  feel  that  is  more  congenial. 
A  young  man  with  your  personal  attractions  makes 
friends;  and  friends  mean  opportunities.  I  sug- 
gest this  line  of  thought  to  you.  I  believe  you 
will  do  well  to  give  it  your  earnest  consideration." 

"I  shall  do  so." 

"And  you  must  remember  this.  You  have  no 
cash  capital  to  work  on.  Your  capital  is  a  quick 
brain  and  a  bright  face.  You  must  place  it  where 
it  will  do  you  most  good.  It  will  never  help  you 
there  at  the  car-barn." 


74  THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

An  incident  that  happened  that  evening  at  the 
barn  served  in  a  way  to  drive  home  this  advice  of 
his  friend.  As  he  entered  his  small  office,  Mc- 
Gowan,  the  superintendent,  was  improvising  a 
reprimand  for  a  couple  of  motormen  who  were 
using  too  much  current  in  running  their  cars  as 
registered  by  a  device  on  their  cars  known  as  a 
coasting  dial.  It  was  supposed  to  be  an  index  of 
how  well  the  motorman  in  each  case  was  conserv- 
ing current  and  momentum. 

"Spade,"  directed  McGowan,  "I  wish  you'd 
keep  an  eye  on  the  men,  and  report  everybody  that 
drops  below  twenty-five  percent." 

"I'll  do  as  you  say,  sir,  but  I  don't  like  to  report 
them  for  that  sort  of  thing." 

"What  do  you  mean — you  don't  like  to  report 
them1?" 

William  thought  he  had  been  in  the  service  long 
enough  to  voice  an  opinion. 

"It's  none  of  my  business,  of  course,  but  these 
dials  are  not  a  good  test.  If  you  take — " 

"You  had  the  right  idea  when  you  said  it  was 
none  of  your  business,"  growled  the  superintend- 
ent. "If  you  have  any  kick  on  the  coasting  dials, 
I'll  arrange  it  so  you  can  make  it  to  Mr.  Baker  in 
the  morning." 

This  meant  that  he  would  be  reported  to  the 


OPPORTUNITY  75 

traffic  manager.  McGowan  was  a  hard-headed, 
two-fisted  fellow,  who  ruled  his  piece  of  the  work 
by  brawn  and  let  somebody  else  higher  up  furnish 
the  brains.  His  low  calibre  and  the  low  calibre 
of  the  other  men  he  had  to  deal  with,  William 
had  taken  as  a  matter  of  course  before.  But, 
after  his  experiences  of  the  afternoon  with  two 
people  of  his  own  mental  level,  he  was  suddenly 
overcome  by  a  feeling  of  homesickness — the  inev- 
itable craving  of  a  man  long  marooned  on  a  desert 
isle,  for  his  own  people  and  his  own  places.  For 
the  first  time  in  the  two  years  he  had  been  em- 
ployed there,  he  experienced  a  feeling  of  disgust 
for  his  work. 

In  the  morning,  when  he  returned  to  the  house 
where  he  slept,  a  smell  of  boiling  cabbage  greeted 
him  at  the  door,  or  the  ghost  of  the  smell  of  cab- 
bage boiled  yesterday.  It  all  depended  upon 
whether  the  recurrence  of  cabbage  was  a  daily  or  a 
tertiary  event.  He  hurried  up  the  dingy,  narrow 
stairs.  The  red  and  blue  stained  glass  in  the 
bathroom  door  gave  an  unwholesome  illumination 
to  the  hallway;  as  if  in  filtering  out  the  pleasant 
rays  of  light  it  had  filtered  out  also  all  the  oxygen 
that  should  have  been  in  the  air.  His  room  looked 
out  upon  a  vista  of  back  yards,  wherein  his  neigh- 
bors had  striven  to  outdo  each  other  in  untidiness. 


76  THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

For  the  first  time  the  dreariness  of  these  sur- 
roundings was  impressed  upon  him.  It  was  not 
dreary  to  the  others  who  lived  there.  On  the  con- 
trary, a  joyous  air  of  contentment  reigned  every- 
where which  made  its  deficiencies  the  more  pro- 
nounced. In  the  yard  adjoining  a  man  sat  in  his 
shirt  sleeves,  red  undershirt  showing  at  the  wrists, 
and  tossed  a  ball  to  a  grimy  babe  he  would  have 
admitted  was  his  own — and  seemed  to  enjoy  it. 
In  the  room  across  the  way  a  girl  sang  as  she 
pressed  her  collar  and  cuffs  preparatory  to  put- 
ting them  on. 

Their  optimism  was  unpleasant  to  him.  It  was 
unpleasant  also,  when  he  wanted  to  be  in  the  sun- 
shine, to  have  to  undress  and  go  to  bed.  He  had 
never  succeeded  in  accommodating  himself  to  his 
owl-like  life.  It  seemed  unwholesome  and  un- 
healthy. He  had  taken  the  greatest  pains  to  be 
in  the  sunshine  every  available  minute  as  if  to 
keep  alive  the  red  corpuscles  in  his  blood.  He 
had  a  fear  always  that  he  would  become  pale  and 
senemic — like  one  of  those  creatures  that  live 
under  a  stone. 

The  next  day  he  received  orders — though  not  in 
so  many  words — to  substitute  for  his  morning  nap 
a  visit  to  Mr.  Baker's  office.  The  hour  set  was 


OPPORTUNITY  77 

nine  in  the  morning.  Since  he  had  learned,  how- 
ever, that  it  was  customary  when  a  reprimand  was 
to  be  issued  to  have  the  victim  report  about  two 
hours  before-hand  and  wait,  in  order  to  add  to  his 
humiliation,  William  took  the  precaution  of  call- 
ing Mr.  Baker's  office  on  the  telephone  to  find  out 
at  what  time  that  gentleman  was  expected  to  come 
down.  Being  informed  of  the  hour,  he  slept  from 
about  half  past  seven  until  half  past  nine  and  ap- 
peared at  Mr.  Baker's  office  promptly  at  ten.  So 
prompt,  indeed,  was  he  that  he  preceded  Mr. 
Baker  himself  by  but  a  few  steps  and  was  thus 
given  the  privilege  of  holding  open  the  office  door 
for  him.  For  this  courtesy  the  traffic  manager 
thanked  him  pleasantly.  At  ten-thirty,  when  he 
was  ushered  into  the  private  office,  Mr.  Baker 
recognized  him. 

"Er — a — Mr.  Spade,"  he  said,  consulting  a 
memorandum,  "you  were  requested  to  appear  here 
at  nine  o'clock." 

"Yes,  sir.  But  since  I  learned  you  were  not 
to  be  here  until  ten,  I  did  not  hurry." 

The  glances  of  the  two  men  held  each  other  for 
a  full  minute.  The  traffic  manager  turned  away, 
a  faint  smile  lifting  the  corner  of  his  mouth. 

"Well,  let  that  pass,  Mr.  Spade.     I  have  more 


78  THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

important  business  with  you.  I  understand  you 
are  interfering  with  the  discipline  of  the  barn." 

"I  took  occasion  to  criticise  the  coasting-dials." 

"Why?" 

"Because  I  had  noticed  that  the  men  with  the 
high  percentages  would  let  their  cars  coast  almost 
to  a  standstill,  for  the  purpose  of  improving  their 
record.  And  I  am  certain  that  the  current  re- 
quired to  overcome  the  inertia  of  the  car  in  getting 
up  speed  again  is  greater  than  the  current  saved  by 
the  extra  coasting." 

Mr.  Baker  gazed  thoughtfully  at  the  ceiling. 
"Go  on,"  he  said. 

William  went  on — to  explain  his  observations 
of  the  results  obtained  in  endeavoring  to  save 
money  by  substituting  momentum  for  current, 
when  possible.  The  other  listened  attentively. 

"You  develop  a  very  nice  theory,"  he  said,  at 
length.  "But  we  don't  run  street  railways  by 
theory." 

"The  practical  consideration  is — do  you  save 
current?" 

"Quite  so." 

"Then  why  not  put  a  meter  on  one  of  the  cars 
and  really  find  out?" 

The  other  looked  at  him  sharply. 


OPPORTUNITY  79 

"I  will  take  your  suggestion  under  advise- 
ment," he  said,  finally. 

As  his  visitor  left  he  shook  hands  with  him. 
For  some  time  nothing  was  done  about  it.  Then 
without  warning  one  day  they  put  a  meter  on  one 
of  the  cars  and  conducted  a  series  of  experiments 
with  various  motormen — all  of  which  seemed  to 
prove  the  truth  of  William's  contention,  for  al- 
though one  man  made  a  record  of  nearly  eighty 
percent,  the  consumption  of  current  was  about  the 
same  as  in  the  case  of  the  man  who  made  but 
twenty-five  percent.  As  a  result  the  company 
took  off  the  dials,  and  William  received  a  letter  of 
commendation  from  Mr.  Baker. 

With  this  to  his  credit,  it  seemed  now  that  there 
was  an  opportunity  for  him  to  escape  from  his 
present  position  and  get  a  start  on  the  upward 
way.  He  kept  his  ear  upon  the  ground  and 
waited  for  an  opportunity.  And  when  at  length 
the  master  mechanic  resigned,  the  foreman  of  the 
shops  in  consequence  being  made  master  mechanic, 
and  the  assistant  foreman  of  shops  being  made 
foreman,  William  made  application  to  Mr.  Baker 
for  the  vacant  position  of  assistant  foreman.  It 
was  not  a  very  important  job — the  pay  was  but 
one  hundred  dollars  a  month — and  there  was  no 


8o  THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

one  in  the  shops  with  education  enough  to  fill  the 
place.  He  thought  therefore  that  he  stood  a  good 
chance.  But  Mr.  Baker  sent  for  him  one  day  and 
said  that  the  place  had  already  been  given  to  a 
friend  of  someone  higher  up. 

''When  do  I  get  a  chance,  Mr.  Baker?" 

"You  have  to  hit  the  bull's-eye  many  times, 
Mr.  Spade,  before  they  ring  the  bell.  There  is  a 
generation  of  young  men  growing  up  now  who 
are  the  sons  of  rich  fathers.  They  are  'not  ex- 
pected to  win  their  way  upwards  from  the  bottom 
by  their  own  efforts  as  their  fathers  and  their 
grandfathers  did.  They  are  put  through  the  mill 
and  passed  upward  from  position  to  position  to 
places  of  trust — and  high  salary.  Young  men 
such  as  you  must  stand  aside  when  this  procession 
is  going  by." 

"Mr.  Spade,"  he  concluded,  as  William  rose  to 
go,  "there  is  only  one  coin  that  counts  in  the  hands 
of  a  young  man  winning  his  way.  That's  punch. 
You  have  to  get  the  world  down  and  poke  it  in  the 
eye,  and  then  it  gives  you  what  you  want." 

It  was  a  gloomy  and  crestfallen  William  Spade 
that  set  foot  upon  the  sidewalk  outside  the  Com- 
pany's office.  He  felt  mentally  as  he  had  felt 
physically  some  years  before  in  an  interclass  fight 
when  he  had  fallen  upon  the  ground  and  a  mob  of 


OPPORTUNITY  81 

eight  or  ten  deep  had  settled  upon  him,  making  it 
impossible  for  him  to  move  or,  except  occasionally, 
to  breathe.  He  was  down  now,  with  no  power  to 
get  up,  and  the  weight  upon  him  was  suffocating 
him.  He  must  pull  himself  up  out  of  the  stratum 
to  a  level  where  people  breathed.  There  were 
persons  who  were  contented  at  the  level  in  which 
he  lay,  perhaps,  because  they  had  risen  from  a  still 
lower  one.  He  himself  had  been  contented  there 
when  he  felt  he  was  generating  power  to  lift  him- 
self out  of  it.  But  now  when  he  saw  that  he  had 
stored  up  no  power,  but  was  a  mere  mole,  smother- 
ing underground  and  waiting  to  be  stepped  upon, 
he  resented  the  location  that  had  been  assigned 
him.  He  must  get  up  into  the  light  and  air  at  any 
cost. 

Of  course  this  state  of  mind  was  due  to  the  germ 
that  had  long  ago  been  introduced  into  his  system. 
His  contact  with  riches  and  ease  had  made  poverty 
nauseating  to  him.  His  system  demanded  luxury 
and  money-spending.  He  had  been  inoculated 
with  the  desire  for  luxury  and  opulence  and  his 
cumulative  discontent  with  the  lack  of  it  was  now 
breaking  through. 

At  this  hour  of  the  day  it  was  high  time  to  go 
back  to  the  nest  which  was  his  home  and  lay  him- 
self down  to  sleep.  But  dark  nests  had  no  attrac- 


82  THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

tions  for  him.  He  preferred  to  be  in  a  place 
where  people  walked  in  the  sunlight.  This  was 
not  hard  to  find.  About  him  were  beautiful 
women  in  dresses  of  all  hues,  strangely  tight 
around  the  bottom  as  was  the  fashion  that  year, — 
in  which,  eagerly  crippling  themselves,  they 
moved  slowly  along  with  much  expenditure  of 
effort,  and  were  greatly  pleased.  It  was  strange 
that  a  woman  who  could  take  a  nice,  thirty-two 
inch  step  would  voluntarily  put  on  a  type  of  gar- 
ment that  would  make  her  take  two  steps  to  tra- 
verse the  same  distance — but  they  did  it  with  joy. 
For  no  female  would  permit  herself  to  be  comfort- 
able if  by  so  doing  she  wore  other  attire  than  that 
prescribed  for  that  particular  season  of  that  par- 
ticular year. 

An  automobile,  of  a  design  strangely  familiar, 
hurried  along  on  his  side  of  the  street.  Suddenly, 
in  response  to  a  quick  tightening  of  the  brakes,  it 
cut  down  its  speed  and,  with  a  perilous  double 
turn,  swung  smoothly  into  a  vacant  parking  space 
by  the  curb.  He  found  himself  abreast  of  its 
wind-shield  and  close  to  it.  The  girl  within 
leaned  back  comfortably  against  the  cushions. 

"Well,  Mr.  Spade,"  she  said. 

He  stopped  in  surprise,  and  met  a  pair  of  hand- 
some eyes — which  belonged  to  his  lady  of  the 


OPPORTUNITY  83 

stranded  automobile.  Small  wonder  the  car  had 
been  familiar. 

"Good  morning,  Miss  Barclay,"  he  replied. 

She  raised  her  eyebrows  as  he  pronounced  her 
name,  but  made  no  comment  upon  his  knowledge 
of  it. 

"You  were  in  such  a  brown  study,  I  could  not 
resist  interrupting  it,"  she  observed. 

"I  was  speculating  on  the  propensity  they  all 
have  for  hobbling  themselves  up." 

"We  all  do  it.  I  myself  am  a  perfect  cripple, 
like  a  Chinese  woman.  I  have  positively  given 
up  walking.  But  why  do  you  philosophize  thus"? 
Are  you  going  to  write  a  book  to  prove  that  we 
are  a  nation  of  wasters  and  slaves  to  fashion*?" 

"Would  you?" 

"No.  If  I  were  you  I  should  get  in  this  auto- 
mobile instead  and  help  me  buy  a  hat.  It  would 
show  that  you  rather  approved  of  extravagance." 

In  his  present  mood,  this  fitted  in  well  with  his 
desires.  They  drove  to  a  luxurious  sort  of  shop, 
where  a  carriage-man  opened  the  door  of  the  ma- 
chine for  them,  saluting  her  by  name.  A  boy 
opened  the  door  of  the  shop,  and  they  entered  into 
a  spider's  parlor  laid  with  a  rug  whose  sheen  was 
unmistakable,  and  set  about  with  deep  luxurious 
chairs.  A  high  wainscot  of  dark  oak,  a  rich-hued 


84  THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

rep  wall  covering  above,  a  few  pictures  chosen 
with  much  skill,  heavy  hangings — this  was  the  set- 
ting. A  woman  entered  and  greeted  them  with 
an  expert  blending  of  friendliness  and  deference — 
all  as  though  there  was  no  business  to  be  trans- 
acted and  the  girl  was  simply  honoring  them  with 
a  call.  An  assistant  presently  brought  out  hats, 
which  were  tried  on  one  after  another.  In  fact, 
for  a  while,  William  was  of  the  opinion  that  the 
expedition  was  merely  for  the  purpose  of  seeing 
how  well  those  lovely  creations  looked  in  conjunc- 
tion with  her  glorious  complexion  and  high  color. 

"Don't  you  think  this  is  darling*?"  was  her  fre- 
quent ecstatic  question. 

"Darling  is  the  word,"  he  would  reply,  thinking 
of  the  ensemble  rather  than  merely  the  hat. 

Or  "I  am  sure  this  is  positively  the  best." 

"Positively,"  was  his  opinion. 

"You  are  nothing  but  an  echo,"  she  objected. 

"You  wouldn't  value  my  real  opinion  on  this 
subject." 

"On  the  contrary,  I  should  swear  by  it." 

"Really?" 

"Of  course." 

He  leaned  back  luxuriously  into  the  depths  of 
his  chair  and  glanced  at  the  waiting  assistant. 

"Will  you  get  that  gwendolyn-colored  hat  with 


OPPORTUNITY  85 

the  rose  in  it*?  The  rose  matches  the  lady's  com- 
plexion. Don't  forget,  Miss  Barclay,  which  com- 
plexion you — yes,  that's  the  hat.  Glorious!" 
He  stood  up  and  viewed  it  from  the  other  side. 
"That  will  do  very  nicely,"  he  said,  to  the  amused 
proprietor.  "You  may  send  it." 

The  girl  gasped,  but  good  sportsmanship  was 
part  of  her  training  and  code. 

"You  need  not  send  it,"  she  remarked.  "I'll 
wear  it." 

Whereupon  she  put  the  rose-decked  creation 
upon  her  head  and  secured  it  with  the  necessary 
pins.  The  color  in  her  cheeks  was  a  trifle  deeper 
now  than  the  roses,  the  excitement  of  surrender- 
ing, if  but  briefly,  to  his  will  having  moved  her 
blood  on  a  little  more  quickly.  They  left  the 
shop  and  she  took  him  back  to  about  the  spot 
where  she  had  picked  him  up. 

"I  am  due  home  in  a  few  minutes.  Shall  I  set 
you  down  at  your  club*?"  she  asked,  demurely. 

He  named  a  less  difficult  place  this  time.  As 
he  watched  the  car  move  away,  he  realized  that 
she  was  symbolic  of  something — that  she  lived 
above  the  surface  of  the  ground.  But  he  also 
realized  that  to  live  where  she  lived  required 
strength  and  the  exercise  of  power. 

Both  of  these  things,  however,  he  proposed  to 


86  THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

attain.  And  if  he  was  to  attain  them  and  make  a 
place  for  himself  wherein  he  would  receive  what- 
ever advancement  he  had  rightfully  earned,  he 
must  set  about  it  very  soon.  It  was  no  small 
problem  to  decide.  His  bed  and  he  were  not  ac- 
quainted that  day.  But  when  nightfall  came  he 
had  made  up  his  mind.  And,  with  his  reports  to 
the  main  office  the  following  morning,  went  also  a 
letter  saying  that  as  soon  as  the  Company  could 
get  the  services  of  a  new  night  clerk,  he  wished  to 
resign. 


CHAPTER  V 

MISS    BARCLAY    BLUSHES 

Some  ten  months  later  an  old  gentleman  care- 
fully turned  the  knob  of  the  door  upon  which  was 
inscribed  "William  Spade.  Life  Insurance,"  and 
entered  the  office.  The  young  man  at  the  desk 
sprang  to  his  feet. 

"Well,  father,  how  are  you?" 

"First  rate,  I  thank  you."  He  turned  back  to 
look  at  the  name  on  the  door.  "Son,  it's  a  com- 
fort, isn't  it,  to  have  your  name  printed  on  some- 
thing. I  used  to  have  my  name  on  the  glass  of 
my  office  door  and,  although  most  of  the  time  you 
couldn't  read  it  for  dust,  it  showed  I  was  a  person 
people  wanted  to  see.  But  now  you  can't  find  my 
name  anywhere." 

"Son,"  he  went  on,  brushing  the  thin  hair  back 
from  his  forehead,  "you  saw  me  when  I  was  in  my 
prime — when  I  was  the  chief  owner  of  a  business 
that  was  the  envy  of  all  my  friends.  You  saw 
that  taken  out  of  my  hands  by  a  very  unfair  piece 
of  dealing.  I  want  you  to  profit  by  my  mistake. 

87 


88  THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

That  is  the  only  consolation  I  can  get  out  of  the 
failure  I  have  made  of  my  life." 

The  elder  Spade  had  aged  greatly.  To  his  son, 
it  seemed  but  a  short  while  since  the  father,  laugh- 
ing, light-hearted,  a  young  man  almost,  had  held 
a  small  boy  in  his  arms  before  the  fire  and  recited 
poetry  to  him,  until,  still  listening  to  its  cadences, 
the  tired  child  had  fallen  sound  asleep.  William 
could  still  remember  the  voice  declaiming: 

"The  hand  of  Douglas  is  his  own 
And  never  shall  in  friendly  grasp 
The  hand  of  such  as  Marmion  clasp." 

These  stirring,  heroic  words,  breathing  war  and 
defiance,  the  gentle-spirited,  peace-loving  man,  by 
strange  antithesis,  never  tired  of  hearing. 

"Well,"  asked  Mr.  Spade,  at  length,  "how  are 
you  getting  on*?" 

"Nicely.  I  am  going  to  move  into  a  bigger 
.office.  A  smaller  one  would  be  quite  adequate, 
you  understand,  but  I  have  to  live  up  to  a  modern 
business  axiom,  which  is  to  keep  improvements 
and  expansion  always  ahead  of  business.  As  soon 
as  a  man  starts  out  he  takes  an  office  twice  as  big 
as  he  needs,  puts  a  valuable  rug  on  the  floor  and 
installs  every  possible  known  piece  of  mahogany 


MISS  BARCLAY  BLUSHES          89 

office  furniture,  twice  as  expensive  as  he  can  af- 
ford; and  waits  for  business  to  catch  up  to  him." 

"It  seems  to  me  that  such  squandering  could 
only  lead  to  failure." 

"It's  the  bluff  that  counts.  A  man  who  has  an 
office  in  a  building  where  there  is  no  elevator 
might  just  as  well  not  be  in  any  business.  The 
more  marble  there  is  in  the  lobby  of  an  office- 
building  the  more  people  go  in  and  out  through  it. 
Business  men  today  love  to  be  dazzled.  They 
give  their  business  to  the  man  who  keeps  them 
waking  longest  in  his  outer  office." 

"But  all  that  is  not  sincere." 

"We  do  not  strive  for  sincerity  any  more,"  re- 
sponded William,  cheerily. 

He  'moved  into  a  larger  and  more  comfortable 
office  suite  the  following  week.  As  he  had  fore- 
cast to  his  father,  he  put  valuable  rugs  on  the 
floors.  He  purchased  the  plainest  and  most  ex- 
pensive desks,  filing  cases  and  office  equipment. 
He  selected  comfortable  chairs  such  as  appear  in 
the  lounging  rooms  of  clubs.  The  whole  had  an 
adroit  air  of  ease  and  prosperity.  On  the  door  in 
black  letters  was  this  simple  announcement — 
"William  Spade." 

In  the  ten  months  that  had  elapsed  since  his 
resignation  from  the  railway  company,  h£  had 


90  THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

slowly  and  carefully  been  accumulating  acquaint- 
ances. He  looked  up  members  of  his  fraternity. 
He  unearthed  football  men  and  acquaintances  of 
his  school  days.  To  these  he  made  himself  agree- 
able in  his  off-hand  way.  They  introduced  him  to 
others.  He  played  squash-ball  and  tennis  with 
them.  He  went  to  their  clubs  with  them.  He 
was  always  ready  for  an  adventure.  If  there  is 
such  a  thing  as  a  man-about-town,  he  became  one. 
He  had  had  himself  put  up  for  two  good  clubs 
and  had  been  taken  in  to  one  of  them.  He  had 
met  a  great  many  poor  young  men,  but  he  had  also 
met  many  rich  ones — and  a  myriad  of  that  class 
who  had  great  expectations.  It  was  to  this  latter 
class  of  men,  at  length,  that  he  devoted  his  atten- 
tion. He  knew  scores  of  them  whose  mothers 
held  large  sums  of  money  in  trust  for  them. 
There  were  others  who  were  heirs  to  estates  in  dis- 
pute, from  which  they  were  bound  to  receive 
money  as  soon  as  the  right  amount  was  decided 
upon.  Most  of  them,  meanwhile,  were  marking 
time — waiting  the  pleasure  of  the  gods.  Not  a 
very  admirable  attitude.  But  the  certainty  of 
plenty  at  some  time  in  the  future  had  an  enervat- 
ing effect  upon  them.  Some  of  them  would  have 
gone  into  business  immediately  if  they  had  had  the 
money  right  away  instead  of  having  to  wait  for  it. 


MISS  BARCLAY  BLUSHES          91 

Others  would  simply  have  begun  to  spend  it  at 
an  earlier  date.  But  they  were  unanimous  in  one 
thing — they  all  wanted  the  money. 

William  soon  accumulated  a  strong  following 
among  them,  because  it  began  to  appear  that  he 
would  be  able  to  be  of  assistance  to  them.  He 
was  working  upon  a  scheme  by  which  the  life  ten- 
ant, or  the  trustee,  or  whoever  it  was  that  held 
the  money  the  heirs  waited  for,  might  still  con- 
tinue to  hold  it  and  the  heirs  possess  it  too.  Such 
an  arrangement  seemed  in  the  nature  of  a  miracle 
to  these  hungry  pups  who  were  sitting  upon  their 
haunches  waiting  patiently  for  the  food  at  last  to 
be  dropped  to  them — and  to  William  too  it  seemed 
that  it  would  be  a  miracle  if  he  could  so  arrange 
the  details  that  the  scheme  would  actually  work. 

It  was  a  broader  field  for  him  than  his  life  in- 
surance— and  more  than  that  it  had  the  appear- 
ance of  being  a  broader  field.  He  had  become 
strongly  convinced  of  late,  of  the  doctrine  of  ap- 
pearances. Nothing  succeeded,  evidently,  like  the 
appearance  of  success.  If  such  were  the  trend  of 
the  generation,  he  would  do  well  to  fall  in  with  it. 
He  did  fall  in  with  it,  with  a  vague  realization 
that  it  was  an  unsound  basis  to  work  upon.  But 
his  contact  with  riches  had  made  him  desire  rich- 
ness, and  his  later  contact  with  poverty  had  made 


92  THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

him  abhor  drabness.  His  office  and  his  life,  here- 
after, were  to  be  civilized — and  by  civilization  he 
understood  the  civilization  of  the  rich. 

And  so,  having  run  up  a  very  big  bill  for  office 
furniture  and  mortgaged  his  future  to  pay  the 
large  rent  of  his  offices,  he  now,  after  having  strug- 
gled under  this  expense  for  nearly  a  year,  proved 
his  confidence  in  himself  by  writing  an  advertise- 
ment for  a  competent  and  therefore  an  expensive 
stenographer.  Having  attended  to  this,  he  felt 
that  he  had  now  started  his  business  upon  a  firm 
foundation. 

One  Sunday  afternoon,  about  this  time,  he  put 
on  his  most  becoming  clothes  and  made  a  call. 
He  had  not  long  before  accidentally  met  upon  the 
street,  a  sister  of  one  of  his  college  friends.  Her 
husband  had  been  appointed  an  Assistant  Attor- 
ney-General and  they  had  taken  a  house  in  Wash- 
ington. She  insisted  that  he  must  call  upon  her 
very  soon,  and  he  was  taking  advantage  of  the 
first  available  Sunday  afternoon. 

He  was  rather  surprised  at  the  scale  on  which 
they  lived.  But  he  reflected  that,  having  an  am- 
ple income  in  addition  to  the  honorarium  the  gov- 
ernment allows  assistant  cabinet  officers,  it  would 
be  a  temptation  to  them  to  spread  out  and  receive 
the  adulation  their  official  position  carried  with  it. 


MISS  BARCLAY  BLUSHES          93 

The  house  had  a  wide,  white,  marble  front,  with  a 
hedge  and  some  trim  pine  trees  bordering  the  piece 
of  parking  before  it.  Several  automobiles  stood 
at  the  curb.  The  grilled  door,  whose  handsome 
iron  pattern  stood  out  sumptuously  against  the  red 
silk  curtain  behind  it,  was  opened  by  a  man  in 
smart  livery. 

"Mrs.  Carver1?"  William  asked,  wondering  if 
he  were  calling  at  the  right  house. 

The  man  bowed,  and  took  his  hat  and  gloves. 
He  said  that  he  would  find  Mrs.  Carver  in  the 
library.  As  this  appeared  to  be  upstairs,  William 
ascended  a  curving  marble  stair,  at  the  top  of 
which  a  murmur  of  conversation  directed  him  to  a 
room  at  his  right.  Mrs.  Carver  rose  to  greet  him. 

"So  glad  you  came,"  she  said,  but  was  too  busy 
then  to  add  more  than  a  few  sentences  to  this 
greeting.  She  presented  him  to  a  girl  whose  name 
he  never  discovered,  for  she  slurred  it  so  adroitly 
that  he  could  not  tell  whether  the  cooing  sound 
she  had  made  was  really  a  name  or  just  a  courte- 
ous symbol,  in  place  of  a  name  she  had  forgotten. 
The  girl  consisted  of  an  attractive  dress  and  hat 
with  something  animate  within  that  conversed. 

He  looked  appraisingly  over  the  company  in  the 
room.  An  air  of  forced  gayety  hung  over  them. 
A  year  later  he  would  have  known  that  half  of 


94  THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

them  were  head-hunters,  who  came  for  the  pur- 
pose of  telling  upon  the  following  afternoon  the 
manner  in  which  they  had  occupied  themselves 
upon  this  afternoon,  thus,  by  reason  of  the  Car- 
vers' official  position,  absorbing  credit. 

He  and  his  companion  were  presently  joined  by 
another  girl,  dragging  spoils  in  the  shape  of  two 
young  men — social  butterflies  fresh  from  the  co- 
coon. They  were  abnormally  blase.  Not  more 
than  twenty  years  old,  they  had  adopted  the  pose 
that  the  world  had  offered  all  its  store  of  enter- 
tainment and  failed  to  interest  them.  William 
could  not  but  think  of  the  waste  it  was  that  these 
young,  impressionable  human  beings,  endowed 
with  brains  and  precious  feelings,  should  pur- 
posely view  the  world  through  dark  glasses,  de- 
priving all  the  best  things  of  their  flavor  and  all 
the  beautiful  things  of  their  loveliness,  in  order 
that  they  might  sustain  a  pose  of  complete  sophis- 
tication. In  place  of  the  simple,  natural  joy  of 
living,  they  strove  always  for  complex  means  of 
enjoyment,  simply  for  the  effect  of  not  appearing 
to  be  entertained  by  the  things  which  entertain  the 
ordinary  individual. 

They  all  flitted  away  from  him  presently,  and 
in  their  place  soon  came  smiling  Mrs.  Carver — 
who  noted  his  air  of  abstraction. 


MISS  BARCLAY  BLUSHES          95 

"What  is  the  bad  news'?"  she  asked.  "Let  me 
enjoy  it." 

"I  was  just  meditating  upon  a  waste  of  per- 
fectly good  sensibilities  and  brains.  There  go 
two  boys  just  turned  twenty  to  whom  the  world 
has  nothing  left  to  show." 

"You  don't  blame  them,  do  you?  They  are 
brought  up  to  be  interested  only  in  the  things  that 
it  is  proper  to  be  interested  in.  All  other  things 
to  them  are  common  or  impossible — or  just  drab. 
That  is  their  great  fear  in  life — of  being  drab." 

Mrs.  Carver  viewed  the  two  young  men  reflec- 
tively. "If  I  had  children  they  would  be  just 
like  that.  My  husband  has  had  brains  enough  to 
make  money — our  children,  if  we  had  any,  would 
have  to  be  trained  to  spend  it  properly.  Their 
vision  would  be  narrowed  down  just  as  is  the 
vision  of  those  two  boys.  They  would  be  set  in 
a  class  whose  objective  is  the  buying  of  pleasure. 
As  members  of  it  they  would  have  to  learn  to  en- 
joy themselves  in  a  manner  that  would  reflect  dis- 
tinction upon  them — to  know  at  what  combina- 
tion of  circumstances  to  be  bored  and  at  what  to 
appear  diverted.  They  would  make  a  serious 
business  of  pleasure  and  the  disbursing  of  money. 
A  high  objective,  isn't  it1?" 

William  assented.     It  occurred  to  him  that  it 


96  THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

was  in  order  not  to  lose  his  foothold  on  this  very 
sort  of  life  that  he  was  making  his  supreme  effort. 
For  the  moment  he  could  not  help  thinking  that  it 
was  an  empty  ambition. 

"But,  as  you  think,  without  saying,"  Mrs.  Car- 
ver went  on,  quickly,  "why  do  we  stay  in  this 
atmosphere?  It  is  only  because  we  are  carried 
on  by  our  own  inertia.  If  we  strike  out  to  swim, 
the  current  carries  us  on  just  the  same.  The  con- 
duct of  our  special  world  is  determined  by  the 
halcyon  age  in  which  we  live,  which  gives  us 
money  and  leisure.  If  one  finds  himself  mentally 
and  financially  equipped  for  such  a  class,  he  must 
either  accept  it  as  it  is,  or  else  find  himself  human 
society  in  a  class  lower  in  the  scale — which  could 
not  be  satisfactory." 

He  was  about  to  reply  when  someone  entered 
the  room.  His  hostess  moved  a  step  from  him  to 
greet  her.  William  stood  where  he  was,  a  light 
of  unusual  interest  in  his  eyes  as  he  viewed  the 
newcomer.  Mrs.  Carver  turned  to  him. 

"I  want  to  present  you  to  Miss  Barclay,"  she 
said. 

He  bowed  and  let  his  eyes  rest  upon  hers.  Hers 
were  bright,  and  a  flush  was  mounting  her  cheeks 
which  was  not  the  flush  of  embarrassment — an 
emotion  she  knew  not. 


MISS  BARCLAY  BLUSHES          97 

"How  do  you  do,  Mr.  Spade,"  she  murmured — 
smiled,  and  in  a  moment  had  slipped  away. 

Mrs.  Carver  eyed  her  narrowly.  "Now  why 
did  she  blush  *?"  she  asked. 

"Did  she?"  responded  William. 


CHAPTER  VI 

A    DIVERTING    GAME 

William's  scheme  to  permit  the  impecunious 
heir  to  come  into  possession  of  his  inheritance 
while  the  life  tenant  still  continued  to  hold  it, 
progressed  steadily.  At  length  he  called  in  a 
young  lawyer  named  Warburton,  in  whose  ability 
he  had  great  confidence,  and  turned  the  whole 
scheme  over  to  him  to  make  water-tight;  and  War- 
burton,  going  over  it  inch  by  inch,  soldered  up  the 
leaks,  and  gave  it  as  his  opinion  that  the  scheme 
would  work. 

The  problem  was :  to  enable  a  man  who,  for  in- 
stance, would  inherit  one  hundred  thousand  dol- 
lars upon  the  death  of  his  mother,  to  obtain  that 
money  immediately.  No  bank  would  lend  him 
a  hundred  thousand  dollars  upon  such  a  prospect, 
because  he  might  die  and  never  inherit  the  money, 
in  which  case  the  bank  would  lose.  The  bank 
must  be  secured  against  such  a  contingency,  and 
the  solution  of  that  was  so  simple  as  to  be  stag- 
gering. It  was  only  necessary  to  insure  the  life  of 

98 


A  DIVERTING  GAME  99 

the  heir  for  one  hundred  thousand  dollars  and 
make  it  payable  to  the  bank  in  case  he  died  before 
inheriting  the  money.  The  bank  could  not  lose. 

The  bank  would  insist,  of  course,  that  the  inter- 
est be  guaranteed  as  well.  This  was  to  be  accom- 
plished by  the  heir  buying  an  annuity  for  his 
mother  equal  to  the  amount  of  the  interest;  and 
making  it  payable  to  the  bank.  That  made  the 
whole  transaction  absolutely  iron-clad.  And  the 
beauty  of  it  from  William  Spade's  standpoint  was 
this.  He  would  receive:  first,  a  commission  for 
writing  a  hundred-thousand-dollar  life  insurance 
policy — a  large  stroke  of  business  in  itself;  second, 
a  commission  for  writing  a  six-thousand-dollar 
annuity,  which  was  a  large  annuity;  and  third,  a 
two-percent  commission  for  obtaining  a  hundred 
thousand  dollar  loan,  which  was  a  large  loan. 

The  fact  that  it  was  possible  to  manipulate 
affairs  in  this  manner  so  that  two  people  could 
have  possession  of  the  same  dollar  at  the  same 
time,  seemed  to  William  to  be  a  commentary  upon 
the  financial  possibilities  that  existed  in  his  coun- 
try. It  seemed  to  prove  the  power  and  plenty  of 
the  nation's  money,  and  its  eagerness  to  take  ad- 
vantage of  every  scheme,  however  unorthodox, 
that  promised  a  safe  return  of  money. 

The  spring  of  that  year  found  the  country  more 


ioo          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

free  than  ever  with  money  and  strong  in  its  reli- 
ance upon  its  prosperity.  It  was  a  wave  of  un- 
usual success  that  rose  above  the  level  of  past 
steady  successes — that  gave  promise  of  greater 
opportunities  and  even  wider  fields. 

William  Spade  was  able  to  furnish  ten  starve- 
ling heirs  with  their  inheritances,  by  putting  into 
practice  the  method  he  had  worked  out.  The 
money  involved  in  these  cases  amounted  in  all  to 
more  than  five  hundred  thousand  dollars  and,  in 
consequence,  the  horn  of  plenty  dropped  into  his 
lap  a  large  sum  of  money.  He  had  many  debts  to 
pay.  There  were  lawyer's  fees  and  other  ex- 
penses. But  even  deducting  these,  he  felt  happy 
in  the  net  profit  that  he  was  able  to  deposit  at  his 
bank. 

It  was  not  always  a  charitable  act  that  he  did 
in  obtaining  money  for  these  youths.  He  failed 
to  realize  that  the  power  he  had  in  his  hands  was 
one  which  needed  to  be  used  with  discretion.  He 
was  like  a  physician  having  in  his  possession  a  po- 
tent drug,  which  was  capable  of  great  good  or, 
if  not  used  with  discretion,  of  lasting  harm.  Some 
of  the  young  men,  perhaps  it  would  be  better  to 
say,  most  of  them,  were  too  inexperienced  to  be 
trusted  with  as  much  money  as  he  obtained  for 
them.  The  signs  were  plain  that  they  had  no 


A  DIVERTING  GAME  101 

thought  but  to  spend  it  as  fast  as  they  could. 
William  knew  this,  but  felt  no  duty  to  interest 
himself  in  it.  He  did  not  believe  that  probing 
into  the  results  of  his  business  acts  was  his  respon- 
sibility. 

He  had  had  many  difficulties  in  obtaining  a 
competent  stenographer  to  care  for  his  office.  In 
the  course  of  two  months  he  had  had  four  or  five. 
What  he  wanted  was  a  woman  who  could  take 
care  of  his  office  tactfully  and  efficiently  during 
his  absence,  who  could  keep  his  books  for  him 
accurately,  and  who  would  take  an  interest  in  her 
work — in  a  word,  as  a  snip  of  a  thing  informed 
him  upon  being  discharged  from  the  place,  who 
could  run  the  business  just  a  little  bit  better  than 
he  could  run  it  himself. 

One  day  a  young  woman  came  into  his  office 
and  said  that  she  understood  he  wanted  a  stenog- 
rapher, and,  if  such  were  the  case,  she  would  like 
to  apply  for  the  position.  He  glanced  at  her 
clothes  and  then  at  her  face,  and  thereupon  rose 
ceremoniously  from  his  desk. 

"I  believe  there  is  a  God,"  he  asserted. 

"What?' 

"You  suit  me  in  every  detail." 

"You  know  absolutely  nothing  about  me,"  she 
exclaimed,  beginning  to  laugh.  When  she 


102  THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

laughed,  an  atom  of  memory  stirred  in  his  brain 
and  strove  tantalizimgly  to  bring  up  an  elusive 
picture  of  something. 

"I  know  this  about  you,"  he  said,  "that  your 
clothes  are  restful  to  the  eye  and  you  look  as 
though  you  had  convolutions  upon  the  inside  of 
your  head  instead  of  merely  marcelled  upon  the 
outside." 

She  smiled.     He  studied  the  alert,  mobile  face. 

"Have  you  ever  met  me  before?"  he  asked, 
presently,  the  elusive  memory  still  disturbing  him. 
But  her  reply  gave  him  no  assistance. 

"If  I  had,"  she  said,  "you  wouldn't  admit  for- 
getting it,  would  you*?" 

He  asked  her  what  remuneration  she  would 
expect  and  she  in  turn  asked  what  her  duties  and 
hours  would  be. 

"What  makes  you  think  you  have  met  me?" 
she  inquired,  when  these  preliminaries  had  been 
arranged. 

"I  have  a  tantalizing  memory  of  you  in  some 
far-off  past,  some  previous  existence,  maybe.  It 
is  the  way  you  laugh — drawing  in  your  under 
lip." 

"I  have  always  done  that — in  this  existence.  I 
do  not  know  about  previous  ones." 

"Some  day  it  may  all  come  to  me.     Perhaps 


A  DIVERTING  GAME  103 

when  Gabriel  blows  his  last  trumpet  and  all  se- 
crets are  revealed — " 

"We  needn't  wait  that  long,"  she  said,  unex- 
pectedly. "I  will  tell  you  now.  My  name  is 
Ruth  Dunbar." 

The  atom  of  memory  in  his  brain  released  its 
picture.  A  big,  overpowering  ocean,  a  small  boy 
wandering  disconsolately  among  the  sand  dunes, 
trying  to  discover  something  there  that  seemed 
familiar  and  homelike,  and  then  coming  out  of  the 
sea  itself,  apparently,  a  nymph  of  a  water-sprite, 
running  along  in  the  surf,  splashing  spray  over 
her  brown  limbs  as  she  ran.  That  was  the  pic- 
ture. He  strode  eagerly  across  the  room. 

"I'll  never  forgive  you  for  not  saying  it  the 
instant  you  opened  the  door,"  he  exclaimed. 

"I  was  not  certain  it  was  you  at  first." 

"Do  you  remember,"  he  began,  eagerly,  "the 
disturbance  that  was  raised  the  time  I — "  He 
paused,  suddenly  embarrassed. 

"Perfectly,"  she  said,  laughing.  "I  even  re- 
member the  color  of  the  paint." 

Her  appearance  settled  the  last  remaining  dif- 
ficulty that  was  disturbing  him,  and  his  craft  at 
last  seemed  to  be  sailing  serenely  over  smooth 
waters.  He  felt  once  more  like  the  boy  he  had 
'been  at  college — care-free,  light-hearted  and  with 


104  ™E  CRESTING  WAVE 

no  responsibilities  upon  him.     It  had  been  many 
a  day  since  he  had  been  in  this  mood. 

Mrs.  Carver  noticed  it  that  evening.  She  had 
invited  him  to  a  dinner,  and,  since  it  was  the  first 
time  William  had  been  to  a  social  function  of  any 
sort  for  a  long  time,  he  was,  in  his  buoyant  mood, 
as  excited  as  a  boy. 

"You  look  tonight,  somehow,  just  as  you  used 
to  look  when  I  knew  you  in  your  college  days," 
she  said. 

"I  feel  like  it.     I  have  no  troubles." 

"Fortunate !  Because  I  am  going  to  sit  you  by 
the  most  attractive  girl  in  Washington." 

He  caught  a  glimpse  then  of  Sara  Barclay  com- 
ing up  the  stairs,  the  light  from  a  red-shaded  lamp 
on  the  landing  falling  across  her  round,  bare  shoul- 
ders. 

"If  she  beats  the  one  I  am  looking  at,"  he  said, 
"she  has  broken  a  record." 

"She  doesn't  have  to  beat  her,"  his  hostess  ob- 
served. "That  is  the  girl." 

At  the  table  his  spirits  rose.  It  was  exciting  to 
him — the  babel  of  talk,  the  laughter,  the  lights, 
the  servants  moving  softly  about,  the  girls  in  their 
best  dresses,  the  hand  that  rested  on  the  cloth  be- 
side him,  and,  at  last,  the  voice  which  said : 

"Is  this  your  glass  of  water  or  is  it  mine? 


A  DIVERTING  GAME  105 

That  is  the  only  way  I  can  attract  your  atten- 
tion." 

"Take  it.  It's  yours.  You  may  have  every- 
thing you  ask." 

"What  were  you  thinking?  The  girl  on  the 
other  side  of  you  has  been  waiting  anxiously  for 
five  minutes  for  you  to  come  to,  so  she  could  try 
her  charms  upon  you.  But  I  had  to  have  you 
first." 

"I  was  entertained  by  the  joyous  mood  of  the 
people  here,"  he  said.  "It  is  so  studied  and  per- 
fect that  when  it  is  sprung  upon  you  suddenly  it 
is  overpowering,  like  the  first  taste  of  ambrosia." 

"Is  it  studied?" 

"There  are  sixteen  persons  at  this  table.  Do 
you  see  one  of  them  that  does  not  seem  to  be  all 
vivacity  and  sunshine*?" 

She  glanced  about  her,  covertly,  so  that  her 
neighbor  upon  the  other  side  might  not  take  the 
opportunity  of  conversationally  snatching  her 
away. 

"No." 

"  That's  the  result  of  study — you  call  it  breed- 
ing. These  same  sixteen  persons  at  the  next  six- 
teen dinners  will  be  just  as  uniformly  gay — no 
matter  how  they  feel.  Therefore  I  say  it  is  stud- 
ied." 


106          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

She  nodded.  But  her  plan  of  campaign  was 
aimed  at  something  more  personal. 

"And  your  present  vis-a-vis — is  she  happy  at 
this  moment,  just  as  the  result  of  study*?"  She 
turned  a  mischievously  contemplative  face  toward 
him. 

It  was  necessary  to  be  wary  in  answering  this. 
"Since  I,"  he  said,  "might  be  considered  as  a  par- 
tial cause  for  any  such  effect — I  should  like  to 
have  your  opinion  upon  the  subject." 

"Oh,  would  you?" 

"While  I  do  not  doubt  my  ability  to  make  any 
girl  happy — " 

"Temporarily,  if  I  understand  you?" 

"Temporarily,  as  you  say.  Still  I  like  to  have 
the  fact  pleasantly  confirmed.  If  you  could  give 
me  a  hint — " 

"What  sort  of  hint?" 

"You  might,"  he  suggested,  seriously,  "say, 
'You  have  made  this  evening  one  that  will  always 
stay  green  in  my  memory.'  Some  such  simple 
thing." 

She  laughed  aloud  at  his  impudence.  "You 
are  delightful,"  she  exclaimed,  as  though  he  were 
some  new  type  of  person  entirely  new  to  her. 

She  shot  at  him  an  arch  glance  which  rested 
upon  him  but  for  an  instant.  It  was  like  a  caress, 


A  DIVERTING  GAME  107 

which  he  still  seemed  to  feel,  as  he  glanced  now 
at  the  curve  of  her  shoulder  turned  quickly  from 
him,  to  make  amends  to  her  partner  beyond.  But 
in  the  smallest  lifting  of  those  shoulders  as  she 
turned,  she  contrived  to  convey  an  alluring  mes- 
sage of  regret.  He  stared  at  her  for  a  moment, 
half- wondering,  half -admiring,  but  quite  conscious 
that  she  had  thrown  her  glove  into  the  ring.  And 
when  she  rose  to  go,  she  left  as  a  guerdon  for  him 
to  wear  in  his  helmet  the  sirrfple  yet  provoking 
word  "Hurry !" 

He  was  conscious  that  a  man  presently  moved 
up  to  the  seat  beside  him,  and  something  familiar 
about  the  face  gave  him  the  impression  that  it 
must  be  one  of  the  boys  he  had  characterized  a  few 
days  before  as  being  sated  with  the  world.  The 
boy  smoked  a  cigar,  blowing  out  smoke  rings,  as 
indicative  of  thought,  and  seemed  to  be  talking. 
William,  enveloped  in  a  comfortable  glow  of  con- 
tent and  at  peace  with  the  world,  watched  the  men 
about  the  table  idly,  aware  of  the  voice  beside  him 
as  of  some  distant  music;  and  answering  now  and 
then  "Yes"  or  "No"  as  one  inserts  a  new  needle 
in  anticipation  of  another  record. 

"I  am  glad  you  feel  that  way  about  it  too," 
drawled  the  voice;  "at  first  I  used  to  think  an  in- 
vitation there  was  a  command — like  a  royal  sum- 


io8  THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

mons,  y'know,  bidding  you  appear  in  the  presence 
of  the  best  and  bravest.  But  now,  d'yuh  me,  I 
seldom  go.  Of  course,  it's  stirring  to  meet  the 
President  of  the  broad  United  States  and  so  on 
and  so  on.  But,  what  with  politicians'  daughters 
and  a  slice  of  hoi  polloi  everywhere  you  look,  it's 
too  deadly  for  me.  Don't  you  think  so,  too?"  he 
demanded. 

William  eyed  the  infant  with  general  contempt. 

"If  I  thought  so,  I  shouldn't  say  it,"  he  re- 
sponded cheerfully. 

Through  this  talk  he  was  studying  absently  and 
with  a  certain  grudging  appreciation  the  ascetic 
features  of  his  host.  Carver  was  gravely  convers- 
ing with  a  small  circle  about  him,  emphasizing  his 
words  by  baton-like  movements  of  his  thin  fore- 
finger— a  man  famous  for  his  singleness  of  pur- 
pose and  his  belief  in  the  seriousness  of  life,  who 
stood  out  strongly  against  this  light-hearted  com- 
pany. But  William  felt  that  he  took  life  and  its 
responsibilities  too  seriously. 

In  the  distance  he  heard  laughter  and  voices  and 
the  assembling  of  guests.  They  rose  presently 
and  moved  toward  the  alluring  sounds.  William 
Spade  was  twenty  that  night — as  young  and  ready 
for  what  joy  the  night  had  to  offer  as  the  boy  at 
his  elbow  should  have  been.  A  new  actor  upon 


A  DIVERTING  GAME  109 

the  scene,  he  felt  curious  eyes  upon  him.  Many 
a  bright  smile  warned  him  of  Alexander,  willing 
to  find  new  lands  to  conquer,  in  response  to  which 
he  strove  to  invite  thfe  iron  heel  of  any  beautiful 
woman  who  wished  to  place  it.  He  followed 
urbanely  into  what  dens  of  danger  he  was  led  and 
enjoyed  himself  thoroughly. 

"The  game  law  is  off  tonight,"  said  Sara  Bar- 
clay, as  he  paused  before  her.  "You  are  fair 
prey  for  them  all." 

She  put  her  hand  upon  his  shoulder  and  moved 
easily  off  with  him,  dancing  not  as  if  it  were  a 
mechanical  process,  but  as  if  rather  she  floated 
along  like  a  dryad  of  a  wood-nymph  lighter  than 
air.  He  told  her  of  this. 

"You  should  see  me  as  a  real  wood-nymph," 
she  replied. 

"Are  you  a  real  wood-nymph  in  private  life1?" 

"Not  so  much  in  private  as  formerly — since 
people  are  getting  more  used  to  the  idea.  I  am 
doing  rhythmic  dancing — as  everyone  is  nowa- 
days. And  as  is  well  known,  we  wear  shockingly 
few  clothes." 

She  made  the  statement  calmly  and  frankly,  as 
she  would  have  mentioned  the  ring  on  her  finger, 
but  quite  well  knowing  that  it  would  excite  more 
interest,  In  common  with  her  kind,  she  used  the 


no          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

axiom  that  it  is  ill-bred  to  be  prudish  as  an  excuse 
for  making,  when  she  chose,  a  daring  point  just 
within  the  rules.  Half  embarrassed,  and  curbing 
the  line  his  imagination  would  have  followed, 
William  made  it  a  point  innocently  to  follow  her 
lead. 

"Do  you  find  you  have  more  freedom*?"  he 
asked,  suavely. 

"As  free  as  a  South-Sea  islander.  You  feel 
quite  stuffy  afterwards  in  mere  clothes." 

She  contrived  to  give  to  the  snatch  of  conversa- 
tion the  air  of  inviting  him  closer  into  her  confi- 
dence— as  though  she  were  singling  him  out  from 
the  rest.  And,  although  he  regarded  all  these 
signs  as  merely  the  familiar  and  yet  ever  new 
points  of  an  all-absorbing  game,  he  was  not  so 
adamant  that  it  made  no  impression  upon  him. 

After  supper  when  people  were  beginning  to 
leave,  Sara  Barclay  said,  "This  is  my  last  dance. 
If  you  are  leaving  now,  there  is  room  in  our  motor 
— in  fact,"  she  said,  smiling,  "plenty  of  room,' 
since  I  came  alone." 

He  drove  home  with  her  and  she  directed  the 
chauffeur  to  take  him  on  to  his  apartment.  He 
stood  still  upon  the  steps  watching  the  red  light  of 
the  car  as,  having  left  him,  it  rolled  swiftly  away. 
It  was  not  unpleasant  to  have  someone  look  after 


A  DIVERTING  GAME  111 

his  comfort  thus.  It  was  not  unpleasant  to  play 
a  game  when  beauty  and  fascination  and  money 
happened  to  be  united  all  in  one  as  stakes — in 
event  that  one  decided  to  play  for  stakes.  And 
whatever  one  played  for,  it  was  a  diverting  game. 
There  was  no  necessity  for  a  man  to  curb  his  hand 
or  to  do  anything  but  wait  to  see  what  happened. 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE    NEW    RELIGION 

It  is  to  be  supposed  that  eligible  young  men 
are  scarce  everywhere,  but  in  Washington,  where 
residence  is  given  as  a  reward  for  age  and  wisdom, 
they  appear  to  be  doubly  scarce.  On  that  ac- 
count, perhaps,  William  found  himself  receiving 
many  invitations.  He  had  set  himself  up  in  an 
expensive  bachelor  apartment,  which,  no  doubt, 
did  much  toward  stimulating  the  imagination  of 
many  a  person  bidding  him  to  this  or  that  affair. 
He  found  he  could  dine  out  some  three  or  four 
evenings  a  week,  which  was  interesting  and  divert- 
ing, as  he  was  meeting  new  people  always  and 
making  new  friends. 

But  when  he  discovered  there  were  some  ma- 
niacs who  actually  kept  score  of  their  dinner  invi- 
tations and  could  tell  you — or  rather  insisted  upon 
telling  you  on  the  slightest  provocation — exactly 
how  many  times  they  had  dined  out  during  the 
season,  he  felt  that  his  self-respect  made  it  neces- 
sary to  refuse  many  requests  for  his  presence. 


112 


THE  NEW  RELIGION  113 

One  limited  intelligence  informed  him  blandly, 
"Theoretically,  I  dine  at  the  Such-and-Such  Club, 
but.  my  friends  have  not  given  me  a  chance  to  do  so 
for  a  month."  He  found  that  it  was  considered 
very  good  economics  by  a  number  of  free  lances 
not  to  have  any  regular  refectory  but  to  depend 
upon  friends.  The  friends,  therefore,  soon  got  to 
know  who  would  fill  in  at  the  eleventh  hour. 
This  was  not  William's  idea  of  having  a  social 
success. 

As  May  drew  to  a  close,  the  usual  exodus  from 
the  city  began.  Dinners  and  dances  became  less 
frequent.  Sara's  father,  the  only  other  member 
of  her  immediate  family  (her  mother  having  died 
several  years  before)  at  length  decided  that  the 
tropical  climate  of  Washington  was  too  difficult 
for  him  and  followed  the  throng,  taking  Sara  with 
him. 

During  the  months  that  followed,  sometimes 
she  wrote  to  him,  and  he  read  those  letters  care- 
fully. He  actually  allowed  himself  to  ponder 
her  suitability.  For  whatever  his  success  or  fail- 
ure in  life,  it  was  such  an  ornamental  person  as  she 
that  he  would  need.  It  was  people  of  her  class 
with  whom  he  must  live. 

He  did  not  give  consideration  to  the  purpose- 
lessness  of  that  life.  Sometimes  in  the  afternoon 


114          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

at  calling  time,  he  would  see  women  of  the  upper 
stratum,  gowned  in  expensive  clothes  and  driving 
in  expensive  motors,  manned  by  expensive  beings 
in  livery,  making  their  round  of  calls  at  the  houses 
upon  the  fashionable  streets  upon  people  they  did 
not  want  to  see,  who  had  no  human  significance  to 
them  but  were  simply  holders  of  certain  places  of 
wealth  or  influence.  And,  knowing  that  they 
realized  they  were  making  all  this  outlay  of  effort 
and  money  merely  to  obtain  something  which  an- 
noyed them,  the  pathos  and  fruitlessness  of  the  life 
might  have  been  impressed  upon  him.  But  he 
avoided  that  phase  of  it.  As  Mrs.  Carver  had 
said,  that  was  the  only  society  of  cultivated  people 
there  was.  Whatever  idiosyncrasies  and  weak- 
nesses they  had,  unelevating  though  they  might 
be,  he  had  to  accept  them  as  part  of  the  bargain. 
In  fact  that  seemed  to  be  the  attitude  of  everyone 
who  was  permitted  to  stand  on  that  high  plane — 
they  admitted  the  absurdity  and  emptiness  of  the 
code,  but  they  needed  to  breathe  that  atmosphere. 
If  that  were  the  strata  in  which  William  Spade 
was  to  live,  he  must  have  a  wife  used  to  its  forms 
and  graces.  No  one  could  fit  this  specification 
more  fully  than  Sara  Barclay.  Should  he  marry 
her,  it  would,  he  explained  to  himself,  be  because 
of  these  attributes  and  not  because  of  her  money. 


THE  NEW  RELIGION  115 

Viewed  in  this  light,  the  arrangement  was  a  suit- 
able and  permissible  one. 

A  hot,  uninteresting  summer  dragged  on,  until 
one  morning,  toward  the  end  of  July,  the  news- 
papers published  mildly  the  news  that  the  crown 
prince  of  Austria  had  been  assassinated  in  Bel- 
grade— an  announcement  causing  little  comment 
and  arousing  small  interest.  But  within  an  in- 
credibly short  time,  as  a  result  of  it,  the  world  was 
benumbed  by  the  spectacle  of  all  Europe  em- 
broiled. And  having  exempted  Europe,  when  one 
said  the  world,  it  meant  most  of  all  the  United 
States.  And  benumbed  the  country  was — 
stunned,  frightened,  awed. 

The  closing  of  the  New  York  Stock  Exchange 
— its  pulse  and  heart — left  it  dazed  and  gasping 
for  breath.  Its  commerce  and  trade  were  the 
mainstays  of  its  existence,  and  the  mazes  and  in- 
tricacies of  these  two  were  so  strange  and  compli- 
cated that  in  this  great  crisis  it  feared  to  touch  the 
engine  of  its  own  upbuilding.  Let  the  machine 
lie  idle.  The  Stock  Exchange  was  closed. 
What  did  it  matter  if  business  at  large  had  noth- 
ing to  do  with  stocks  and  bonds.  Something  was 
the  matter  with  Money,  and  Money  was  the  guid- 
ing star  of  the  nation's  life. 

The  nations  that  made  money  and  the  spending 


ii6  THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

of  money  their  guiding  star  old  Professor  Mac- 
Millan  had  characterized  as  being  on  the  down- 
grade. At  one  time  it  had  seemed  important  to 
William  to  discover  whether  his  own  nation  was 
aspiring  and  progressing  toward  the  apex ;  or,  hav- 
ing reached  the  apex,  was  all-powerful ;  or,  having 
passed  it,  was  retrograding — sliding  again  towards 
the  abyss.  He  had  brushed  all  that  aside  now. 
He  was  too  busy  striding  towards  wealth  and 
power.  Yet  here  was  a  manifestation  that  might 
have  thrown  light  upon  the  question  as  to  whether 
the  nation  was  moving  forward  or  backward. 
But  he  failed  to  note  how  deeply  the  country 
was  in  the  grasp  of  the  thirst  for  money. 

He  awoke  one  morning  to  find  the  world  chloro- 
formed. He  tried  to  get  a  loan  from  a  bank  of 
five  thousand  dollars  for  one  of  his  clients — a 
matter  which  ordinarily  possessed  about  the  same 
importance  as  the  purchase  of  a  postage  stamp. 
But  the  bank  officials  drew  long  faces  and  said 
that  it  was  not  possible.  Five  thousand  dollars! 
Two  weeks  before  he  had  obtained  a  hundred 
thousand  without  question!  Every  other  source 
was  frozen  up  equally  tight.  Business  was  re- 
duced to  the  mere  process  of  barter  and  exchange 
— so  much  for  so  much — just  as  at  the  time  of  the 
landing  of  the  Pilgrims. 


THE  NEW  RELIGION  117 

William's  business  was  extinguished — quite  as 
though  some  one  had  clamped  a  snuffer  tight  upon 
it.  Bankers  laughed  when  he  entered  their  count- 
ing-rooms. The  purse-bearers  held  up  empty 
hands.  Whatever  office  he  entered,  his  call  took 
on  a  mere  social  aspect.  It  seemed  suddenly  as 
if  all  money  had  disappeared. 

"Miss  Ruth,"  he  said,  entering  his  office  and 
throwing  himself  disconsolately  into  his  chair, 
"the  world  has  gone  wrong.  Nobody  has  any 
money." 

"Money,"  she  replied.  "You  have  already 
made  enough  money  this  year  to  last  to  the  end 
of  it." 

"And  spent  it." 

She  stood  by  the  window  and  looked  down  upon 
the  sun-scorched  street. 

"A  man  like  you,"  she  answered,  "who  digs  his 
spoon  into  the  cauldron  of  business,  and  brings 
it  out  full,  builds  up  a  religion  of  which  he  is  the 
center  and  the  all-powerful  god.  And  when  some 
force,  beside  which  he  is  a  mere  pigmy,  is  let 
loose  in  the  regular  course  of  events,  he  feels  he 
is  ill-used." 

She  was  aware  that  his  early  careful  training 
had  left  no  impression  upon  him — that  his  con- 
tact with  the  spenders,  the  people  who  tried  to 


ii8          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

make  life  easy,  had  eliminated  from  his  make-up 
the  idea  of  responsibility  to  a  God. 

"But  you  do  not  realize,"  she  went  on,  "that 
you  are  a  pigmy.  To  you  God  is  a  legend.  You 
are  your  own  god.  It  is  years  since  you  have  said 
prayers." 

"Why  should  I  say  prayers'?  I  admit  the  ex- 
istence of  a  Creator  of  all  things  and  of  the  rules 
by  which  they  are  run,  but  I  am  put  on  the  earth 
to  be  self-reliant,  to  order  my  own  life,  to  take 
care  of  myself.  If  I  can't  do  it  with  the  power 
I  am  given,  am  I  to  try  to  get  the  bulge  upon 
everyone  else  by  calling  on  Heaven  to  help  me? 
I  wish  you  would  answer  that." 

He  set  about  presently  to  prove  that  he  could 
take  care  of  himself.  While  the  world  lay 
dormant,  his  alert  eye  scanned  the  horizon  for 
provender.  He  found  the  opportunity  of  buy- 
ing for  a  small  sum  five  acres  of  low-lying,  un- 
fruitful land  in  Prince  George  County,  bordering 
a  stream.  It  seemed  like  the  height  of  folly  to 
everyone  who  heard  of  it.  But  without  vouch- 
safing any  explanation,  he  had  a  plan  drawn  divid- 
ing it  into  lots  and  streets  and,  filing  this  with 
the  county  surveyor,  had  it  drawn  upon  the  offi- 
cial plat-book.  This  piece  of  apparent  reckless- 
ness he  performed  upon  the  knowledge,  gleaned 


THE  NEW  RELIGION  119 

as  a  result  of  the  deft  placing  of  two  twenty-dollar 
bills  in  the  hands  of  just  the  proper  person,  that 
this  was  the  only  available  site  for  a  bridge  in 
event  of  the  construction  of  a  certain  new  trolley 
line.  He  had  an  idea  that  the  company,  which 
was  rich  and  whose  business  was  not  affected  by 
the  war,  would  attempt  to  buy  the  right  of  way 
while  land  was  cheap. 

The  possibility  that  it  might  not  be  just  fair 
for  him  to  act  upon  information  gained  in  this 
manner  occurred  to  him.  But  it  was  imperative 
that  he  have  money,  and  it  was  not  for  him,  a 
single  individual,  to  safeguard  the  interests  of  a 
powerful  corporation  to  the  detriment  of  his 
own.  He  felt,  therefore,  no  hesitation  in  using 
the  information  for  his  own  purposes. 

Another  stroke  of  business  he  felt  was  even 
more  adventurous.  He  discovered  one  day  that 
Sara  Barclay's  father,  stirred  up  not  a  little  by 
the  war,  had  returned  for  a  short  while  to  Wash- 
ington and  had  had  an  interview  with  the  Presi- 
dent, which  had  been  made  much  of  by  the  news- 
papers. William  determined  upon  the  bold  ex- 
pedient of  making  use  of  Mr.  Barclay's  presence. 
He  had  been  besieged  for  a  long  while  by  a  young 
man  who  was  to  inherit,  upon  the  death  of  an 
aunt,  two  hundred  thousand  dollars,  and  who 


120  THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

wanted  the  money  immediately.  There  was  no 
way  to  get  the  money — unless  Mr.  Barclay  would 
furnish  it.  After  several  efforts,  William  made 
an  appointment  with  him  at  the  club  where  he 
was  staying.  He  found  the  financier  sitting  at  a 
table  smoking  a  large  cigar.  He  was  a  short, 
thick-set  man  with  a  terrifyingly  solemn  and  dis- 
approving face.  Glancing  at  this  forbidding  ex- 
terior, William  was  rather  sorry  he  had  come. 

"Ha,  Spade!  Sit  down,"  he  said,  with  no 
evidence  of  a  smile.  "Come  to  sell  me  a  rail- 
road?" 

Conscious  of  the  smallness  of  his  mission,  Wil- 
liam was  genuinely  embarrassed.  However, 
there  was  no  graceful  means  of  retreat. 

"Mr.  Barclay,"  he  said,  "I  came  here  for  the 
purpose  of  asking  you  to  invest  two  hundred  thou- 
sand dollars — " 

"Why,  Spade,"  interrupted  the  financier,  "there 
are  people  who  think  just  now  that  there  isn't  that 
much  money  in  the  world." 

William  forgot  his  embarrassment  for  a  mo- 
ment. "I  know,"  he  said,  earnestly,  "everybody 
thinks  the  bottom  has  dropped  out  of  things — 
and  dropped  out  permanently.  They  think  as 
long  as  the  war  lasts,  this  nation  will  be  a  corpse." 

"Don't  you?"  was  the  cold  comment. 


THE  NEW  RELIGION  121 

William  trod  cautiously.  "No,"  he  replied, 
slowly.  "I  think  if  you  dam  up  the  energy  and 
wealth  and  power  of  the  country  six  months  more, 
it  will  burst  loose  with  an  avalanche  that  will 
show  everyone  how  really  rich  and  resourceful 
we  are." 

Mr.  Barclay  rose.  William,  feeling  that  he 
had  been  too  brash  and  outspoken,  rose  also. 
Who  was  he  to  be  explaining  the  financial  situa- 
tion to  one  of  the  leading  financial  minds  of  the 
day*?  To  his  surprise,  however,  he  discovered  a 
miracle  taking  place.  A  smile — a  wry,  reluctant 
smile,  but  still  a  smile — relieved  for  a  moment  the 
tenseness  of  the  other's  face. 

"Spade,  you're  an  optimist."  The  rich  man 
glanced  at  his  watch.  "It  will  be  necessary,"  he 
said,  "for  me  to  lunch  now," — William  took  his 
hat  from  the  table — "and,"  unexpectedly,  "I 
should  like  to  have  you  lunch  with  me.  I  need 
to  hear  more  sunshine  talk." 

William  was  overwhelmed.  But  he  knew, 
from  Sara's  scraps  of  conversation  concerning  her 
father,  that  the  financier,  himself  a  silent  man, 
liked  to  have  people  about  him  who  would  talk 
to  him,  and  that  he  would  take  much  trouble,  if  he 
found  a  man  who  for  one  reason  or  another  prom- 
ised to  be  congenial  company,  to  cultivate  his  ac- 


122          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

quaintance.  Accepting  the  invitation  with  some 
trepidation,  he  set  about,  as  best  he  knew,  to  make 
himself  entertaining.  He  put  out  of  his  mind,  as 
far  as  he  could,  the  fact  that  he  was  talking  to 
an  expert,  and  permitted  himself  to  be  drawn  out 
as  to  his  ideas  upon  the  business  situation  and  as 
to  what  fair  weather  lay  beyond  the  banks  of 
clouds  which  obstructed  the  horizon  at  the  mo- 
ment. 

"My  idea  is,"  he  said,  in  the  course  of  this  con- 
versation, wondering  what  his  companion  was 
thinking,  behind  his  sphynx-like  quiet,  "my  idea 
is  that  there  is  one  quality  in  the  average  Ameri- 
can that  is  going  to  keep  him,  individually  and 
collectively,  from  being  bottled-up  by  this  war  sit- 
uation. And  that  is  his  adaptability — he  doesn't 
permit  himself  to  be  stumped  by  any  new  com- 
bination of  circumstances." 

Mr.  Barclay  said — "Just  what  do  you  mean*?" 
In  explanation  William  told  the  story  of  the 
American  lumber  merchant  who  had  supplied  the 
English  market  for  years  with  what  he  called 
hazel-wood,  until  at  length  the  Englishman  found 
out  that  there  was  no  such  wood.  The  American 
in  the  beginning  had  received  an  order  for  the 
wood  and,  instead  of  explaining  that  his  customers 
were  misinformed,  he  had  looked  over  his  stock 


THE  NEW  RELIGION  123 

and  supplied  them  with  red  gum,  which  was  new 
to  them  and  satisfied  them  as  long  as  they  thought 
it  was  what  they  had  ordered. 

The  financier  smiled  his  wry  smile.  "I  see 
your  point.  Typical  transaction.  Doubly  so  be- 
cause the  man  allowed  himself  an  aberration  of 
several  degrees  from  the  straight  track — and 
called  it  good  business." 

William  felt  the  cold  eyes  upon  him  as  if 
seeking  his  opinion  upon  that  phase  of  it. 

"Of  course,"  he  replied,  evenly,  "every  man  is 
capable  of  deciding  those  questions  as  they  arise. 
Not  long  ago  someone  told  me  the  American 
business  man  was  his  own  religion  and  his  own 
god." 

"The  statement  contains  a  certain  amount  of 
truth,"  agreed  the  other,  cautiously.  "His  self- 
reliance  is  so  complete,  he  feels  the  need  of  no 
Guiding  Hand.  I  sometimes  think,"  he  added, 
seriously,  "it's  a  mistake.  I  am  not  sure  that  a 
nation  can  continue  to  be  successful  and  power- 
ful unless  it  have  a  sincere  belief  in  a  God.  That 
is  a  fact,  Mr.  Spade,  always  to  keep  before  you." 

But  William,  a  little  stirred  up  by  the  ex- 
citement of  personal  contact  with  the  great  man, 
allowed  this  particular  admonition  to  pass  by 
him  unnoted.  He  considered  it  as  merely  a  piece 


124          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

of  incidental  moralizing.  Whereas,  the  great 
financier,  advanced  in  years  and  emerging  from 
the  heat  of  battle,  had  now  clearness  of  vision 
to  see  and  to  view  with  no  lack  of  concern  the 
careless  agnosticism  of  the  men  who  struggled 
beside  him  for  the  money  which  was  their  real 
religion. 

As  William  was  about  to  take  leave  of  him, 
having  decided  that  it  would  be  poor  diplomacy  to 
bring  up  again  the  question  of  the  loan,  his  host 
surprised  him  by  asking  abruptly  if  the  two  hun- 
dred thousand  dollars  was  intended  for  a  loan 
upon  a  prospective  inheritance.  William  replied 
that  it  was. 

"Fix  up  the  papers  then,"  he  said,  laconically. 
"I  can  find  the  money  for  you." 

William  left  the  club,  walking  on  air.  At 
the  door  a  reporter  accosted  him. 

"You  have  been  lunching  with  Mr.  Barclay," 
he  asserted.  "What  is  his  opinion  as — " 

"My  dear  man,"  said  William,  "ask  him." 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE    FOUR-LEAVED    CLOVER 

One  day  shortly  after,  William's  purchase  of 
the  small  tract  of  land  bore  fruit.  Mr.  Baker, 
of  the  street  railway  company,  called  upon  him  at 
his  office. 

"Mr.  Spade,"  he  said,  "you  own  five  acres  of 
land  in  Prince  George  County." 

"Yes." 

"At  what  price  do  you  hold  it*?" 

"Per  lot?" 

"No,"  returned  the  other,  with  a  trace  of  a 
smile,  "the  whole  tract." 

"What  will  you  offer?" 

Mr.  Baker  considered.  "Of  course,"  he  said, 
"as  you  know,  we  must  have  that  land.  You  put 
a  spoke  in  our  wheel — and  we  expect  to  pay 
damages.  What  is  your  price?" 

"How  about  three  thousand  dollars?" 

"That's  two  hundred  per  cent  profit." 

William  reflected.  "Well — twenty-five  hun- 
dred." 

125 


126          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

This  was  the  price  Mr.  Baker  had  been  in- 
structed to  offer.  "Very  well,"  he  replied. 
"Under  the  circumstances  I  suppose  it  is  cheap. 
Will  you  be  so  good  in  the  future,"  he  added, 
"as  to  confine  yourself  to  insurance.  Remember 
the  old  adage  'Cobbler,  stick  to  thy  last.'  " 

"I  stuck — to  my  last,"  responded  William, 
greatly  pleased  with  a  bit  of  rugged  double  en- 
tendre he  found  in  the  words. 

He  told  his  stenographer  of  the  success  of  his 
deal.  She  heard  through  his  naively  enthusiastic 
statement  with  a  face  that  was  frankly  disapprov- 
ing, but  the  perfect  seriousness  of  which  was  fre- 
quently marred  by  a  smile  that  could  not  be 
quickly  enough  curbed.  It  was  beyond  a  doubt  a 
shady  transaction,  and  even  the  smartness  with 
which  he  had  taken  hold  of  the  opportunity,  could 
not  erase  the  taint. 

"Will  you  tell  me,"  she  demanded,  when  he  had 
finished,  "why  that  isn't  just  plain  fraud1?" 

"It  isn't  fraud.  I  simply  held  something  they 
wanted.  They  couldn't  have  it  condemned  as 
farm  land  because  it  is  a  village  laid  out  in  streets. 
So  they  had  to  pay  more  for  it." 

"But  how  do  you  consider  you  earned  the  addi- 
tional fifteen  hundred?" 

"That  was  the  price  of  the  idea." 


THE  FOUR-LEAVED  CLOVER     127 

He  re-entered  his  office.  He  was  in  a  good 
humor.  In  the  paper  which  lay  before  him  was 
printed  a  delicately  veiled  intimation  that  the  an- 
nouncement of  the  engagement  of  Sara  Barclay  to 
William  Spade,  the  young  business  man,  might  be 
expected  soon — possibly  in  the  early  fall.  Wil- 
liam had  been  busy  denying  this  for  several  days 
now.  But  it  was  evident  that  the  rumor  had 
come  to  stay.  His  luncheon  with  Mr.  Barclay 
had  assured  that.  It  brought  up  to  his  imagina- 
tion a  vision  of  power  and  unlimited  opportunity. 
He  saw  himself  standing  in  a  high  place  and  view- 
ing the  field  with  the  same  breadth  of  vision  as  did 
Arnold  Barclay.  He  saw  himself  possessed  with 
information  that  would  enable  him  to  hold  a  hand 
in  the  big  game.  And  when  the  great  financier  at 
length  should  pass  on  beyond,  leaving  his  irons 
untended  in  the  fire,  there  would  be  no  one  to 
watch  over  them  but  his  son-in-law,  William 
Spade,  who  would  step  into  the  seat  once  held  by 
the  great  man,  and,  backed  by  endless  resources, 
become  a  great  power  himself — a  power  beside 
whom  the  very  President  of  the  nation  himself 
would  take  a  secondary  place — in  fact,  if  not  in 
name. 

It  was  a  picture  painted  in  strong  colors.  It 
would  be  a  way  to  success  paved  by  his  own  ef- 


128  THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

forts — by  his  own  ability  to  foresee  and  select  the 
proper  means  to  bring  him  to  the  high  place  and 
by  his  ability,  having  once  arrived,  to  stay  there 
by  means  of  his  brains  and  courage.  Suppose  he 
did  marry  a  girl  he  did  not  love.  He  was  con- 
genial and  friendly  with  her — and  did  not  all 
marriages  resolve  themselves  ultimately  into  that1? 
Love  was  simply  the  lacquer  that  wore  off  with 
use — leaving  a  more  substantial  and  utilitarian 
substance  to  stand  daily  wear. 

A  mood  of  exhilaration  had  lifted  him  above 
the  work  that  lay  upon  his  desk;  and  his  mind  did 
not  seem  ready  to  adjust  itself  again  to  it.  Warm 
sunshine  shone  in  at  the  windows.  A  stray  fly 
buzzed  lazily  against  the  glass.  It  was  not  a  day 
for  indoors  and  work,  but  one  that  suggested 
rather  languor  and  idleness. 

Very  well.  He  would  be  languid  and  idle. 
The  world  had  treated  him  well — a  holiday  was 
due  him  in  celebration.  He  would  play  tennis  for 
the  rest  of  the  afternoon.  No,  he  would  not  play 
tennis.  It  was  hot  and  the  men  with  whom  he 
usually  played  were  away.  He  would  drive  a 
long  way  in  his  automobile  and  get  his  dinner  at 
some  distant  spot.  But  upon  consideration,  this 
too  became  undesirable — a  tame  and  lonesome 
achievement.  He  needed  a  companion,  so  that 


THE  FOUR-LEAVED  CLOVER     129 

the  luxury  of  loafing  might  be  doubled  in  being 
performed  by  two.  His  eye  rested  accidentally 
upon  the  diligent  figure  at  the  desk  in  the  outer 
office.  Perhaps  there  was  a  feeling  of  compla- 
cent condescension  in  him,  perhaps  it  was  just  a 
humanly  gregarious  impulsfe.  He  rose  and  strode 
to  the  door. 

"Miss  Ruth,"  he  asked,  "has  that  languid  feel- 
ing reached  you  yet?" 

She  let  her  hands  fall  into  her  lap.  "Oh,  yes," 
she  replied. 

"I  have  been  thinking  of  antidotes  for  it." 

"That's  very  easy.  Go  lie  down  under  a  tree. 
Or  get  a  canoe — " 

"That  is  the  solution,"  he  interrupted.  "How 
soon  will  you  be  able  to  start?" 

She  gazed  at  him  wide-eyed.  The  relation  be- 
tween the  man  who  employs  and  the  woman  who 
is  employed  is  a  delicate  one,  and  she  had  felt  it 
the  part  of  wisdom  to  discourage  spasmodic  soci- 
ability, such  as  that  now  suggested,  as  unnecessary 
and  as  complicating  an  otherwise  simple  arrange- 
ment. But  she  felt  an  air  of  comradeship  in  the 
offer.  To  most  women  the  touch  of  condescen- 
sion, unconscious  though  it  may  have  been,  would 
have  been  annoying.  But  she  felt  no  jolt  to  her 
pride,  for  his  position,  his  success  and  his  friend- 


130          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

ship  with  successful  people  had  built  up  an  arti- 
ficial barrier  between  them,  the  existence  of  which 
would  have  made  it  unreasonable  in  her  to  expect 
him  to  pay  attentions  to  her  out  of  deference  to 
her  personal  charms — or  for  any  other  reason  than 
courtesy  and  good  feeling. 

Yet  she  did  not  approve  of  the  man.  His  busi- 
ness deals,  of  which  the  one  he  had  recounted  to  her 
a  while  before  was  typical,  were  not  straightfor- 
ward in  the  sense  that  she  understood  straightfor- 
wardness. Her  recent  reflections  upon  the  subject 
had  reaffirmed  in  her  the  conviction  that  his  plan 
of  life  was  to  take  the  easiest  way  to  success,  with- 
out splitting  hairs  as  to  whether  that  way  was 
less  righteous  than  it  should  have  been.  But, 
strangely  enough,  such  is  the  divided  appeal  of 
others  to  us,  her  appraisal  of  his  method  of  life 
did  not,  or  had  not  as  yet,  affected  her  opinion 
of  him  as  a  person.  His  friendly  charm  made 
him  diverting  to  her  even  in  telling  her  of  those 
acts  of  which  she  disapproved. 

In  reply  to  his  question  therefore  she  said: 

"Immediately." 

However,  while  he  had  been  diagnosing  his 
state  of  mind,  the  afternoon  had  been  slipping 
away.  He  at  length  suggested  that  it  would  give 
them  more  time  if  they  took  their  supper  with 


THE  FOUR-LEAVED  CLOVER     131 

them.     He  made  the  suggestion  in  a  tentative 

C7CJ 

manner,  not  being  at  all  sure  that  she  would  ap- 
prove of  it  even  in  the  interest  of  having  more  of 
the  day  at  their  disposal.  Somewhat  to  his  sur- 
prise she  agreed  readily.  It  was  quite  convenient 
to  her;  for  her  mother  was  away  for  the  day,  and 
had  she  dined  at  home,  she  would  have  dined 
alone. 

Thereupon,  in  his  large  way,  he  telephoned  to  a 
nearby  hotel  and  had  them  prepare  and  send  to 
the  office  a  portable  meal  along  the  lines  he  laid 
down.  When  it  arrived,  swathed  in  an  array  of 
napkins,  it  was  most  imposing — lettuce  done  up 
in  oiled  paper  looking  like  hothouse  flowers,  yel- 
low salad  dressing  in  a  silver  receptacle  with  a  lid 
to  it,  three-cornered  sandwiches,  French  pastry, 
and  coffee  in  a  thermos-bottle. 

She  was  amused  at  this  ostentation.  Her  idea 
was  that  it  would  have  been  so  much  easier  and 
quicker  to  have  purchased  the  things  at  the  little 
tea-room  on  the  same  block.  However,  she  had 
to  admit  that  the  layout  looked  festive  and  invit- 
ing. It  was  put  in  the  automobile  that  had  now 
become  a  part  of  William's  equipment,  the  bell- 
boy given  a  liberal  largess,  and  the  machine 
started  forward  upon  its  adventure. 

She  held  the  brim  of  her  hat  against  the  wind, 


132  THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

and  frankly  enjoyed  herself.  He  noted  this  with 
an  approving  glance,  wondering  if  she  took  all  her 
pleasures  with  the  same  enthusiasm.  It  amused 
him  to  think  that  she  made  no  secret  of  the  fact 
that  a  ride  in  an  automobile  was  a  rarity  to  her. 

This  brought  to  his  mind  the  fact  that  she  rep- 
resented a  mile  post  somewhere  behind  him. 
Against  the  advancing  civilization  which  carried 
him  on,  she  was  reactionary.  She  was  an  anach- 
ronism. It  bewildered  him  to  note  that  simplicity 
seemed  to  content  her.  He  had  seen  that  she 
would  have  been  as  well  satisfied  with  food  from 
the  little  cafeteria  as  with  the  more  sumptuous 
repast  he  had  ordered  from  the  hotel.  After  his 
experience  with  other  people  to  whom  costliness 
seemed  to  be  synonymous  with  desirability,  she 
was  not  quite  clear  to  him.  It  was  clear,  how- 
ever, that  she  was  of  a  former  generation,  a  land- 
mark of  the  drab,  dusty  past ;  while  his  other  com- 
panions, of  whom  Sara  Barclay  was  the  type,  were 
the  bright  beacons  of  his  future. 

The  canal,  where  presently  he  held  the  gunwale 
of  a  bobbing  canoe  while  she  stepped  into  it,  ran 
straight  as  a  street  to  the  north.  As  they  pushed 
off  from  the  shore,  she  in  the  bow,  he  in  the  stern 
and  the  provender  amidships,  he  watched  with 
pleasure  the  easy  stroke  of  her  paddle.  The 


THE  FOUR-LEAVED  CLOVER     133 

water,  he  remembered,  was  the  place  where  she 
was  at  home.  He  was  glad  that  she  had  sug- 
gested a  canoe. 

Tall  trees  rose  by  the  side  of  the  water,  shield- 
ing them  from  the  broad  river  beyond.  These 
caught  the  rays  of  the  afternoon  sun  and  threw  a 
cool  shadow  over  the  canal.  When  the  small 
breeze  died  down  momentarily  and  the  surface  of 
the  water  cleared,  he  could  see  the  reflection  as  of 
trees  growing  upside  down — until  the  rippk  of  the 
moving  canoe  cut  into  them  and  erased  the  picture. 
It  was  she  who  called  his  attention  to  this  inter- 
esting thing,  resting  her  paddle  upon  her  knees  to 
look. 

People  passed  them  walking  upon  the  broad 
tow-path  and,  as  they  approached  the  lock-house, 
they  spoiled  the  surface  of  the  water  for  a  man 
upon  the  bank  comfortably  sketching.  They 
went  through  the  lock,  rising  from  the  depths 
upon  the  incoming  tide  until  they  were  level  with 
the  water  beyond  and  the  great  gates  opened  easily 
to  let  them  pass.  Picnickers  stopped  to  ask  them 
the  way  to  intricate  places  of  which  they  were 
blissfully  ignorant. 

Sometimes  they  passed  canoes  coming  in  the 
opposite  direction — passengered  each,  as  was 
theirs,  by  a  man  and  a  girl.  His  companion 


134          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

would  try  to  diagnose,  from  a  hasty  glance, 
whether  the  two  were  married,  or  imminently  so, 
or  not  yet  inoculated — to  use  his  words.  He  as- 
serted that  you  could  not  tell,  because  the  last 
were  conscious,  the  second  were  confused,  and  the 
first  were  ashamed — and  the  symptoms  of  all  these 
emotions  were  the  same. 

In  the  woods  they  heard  the  clear,  liquid  whistle 
of  a  bird  she  said  was  a  wood  thrush.  She  rested 
her  paddle  and  tried  to  imitate  the  call.  He  lis- 
tened attentively  for  a  few  moments  and  then, 
putting  two  fingers  in  his  mouth,  surprised  her  by 
giving  a  fair  working  imitation,  to  which  presently 
the  little  bird  replied. 

"You're  smart,"  she  said,  admiringly. 

"Yes,  I  am,"  he  agreed,  with  experimental  pla- 
cidity, hoping  to  arouse  her  scorn.  In  this  he  suc- 
ceeded. 

"Self-approbation,"  she  asserted,  aloofly,  "is  a 
dull  accomplishment." 

In  the  safety  of  his  place  behind  her  he  smiled 
contentedly. 

"Do  you  always  go  about  finding  shortcomings 
in  people?"  he  asked. 

"But  you  made  it  so  apparent." 

"My  natural  honesty.  I  find  myself  unable  to 
conceal  anything  from  you." 


THE  FOUR-LEAVED  CLOVER     135 

She  turned  half-way  about  and  laughed  for  his 
benefit.  "Quite,"  she  asseverated,  pleasantly. 

"I  wish  you  wouldn't  try  that  stage  laugh  on 
me.  It  makes  me  feel  as  if  you  thought  you  had 
made  a  clever  retort." 

"I  had." 

He  seized  the  diverting  opportunity.  "Self- 
approbation,"  said  he,  "is  a  dull  accomplishment." 

She  laughed  again — 'this  time  very  naturally. 
"Oh,  well,"  she  replied,  "you  set  me  a  bad  exam- 
ple." 

Overhead  and  through  the  trees  they  could  see 
the  rose-glow  of  the  setting  sun.  A  calm,  peace- 
ful stillness,  that  was  like  the  hush  in  a  cathedral, 
fell  about  them.  Their  paddles  splashed  gently 
in  the  water.  In  their  wake  the  ripples  lisped 
against  the  banks.  She  put  up  her  paddle  and 
let  him  push  the  boat  forward  alone.  In  her  en- 
joyment of  the  stillness  and  of  the  absence  of 
other  human  beings,  which  gave  a  sombre  loneli- 
ness to  the  approach  of  dusk,  he  found  a  joy  him- 
self. She  took  delight  in  the  close  presence  of 
the  trees,  the  smooth  water,  the  birds,  and  in  the 
absence  of  any  disturbing  human  sound  to  in- 
terrupt her  contemplation  of  them; — he  took 
delight  in  the  one  human  thing,  beside  himself, 
that  was  there,  never  ceasing  to  wonder  at  her 


136  THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

frank  gratification  at  what  seemed  to  him  tiny 
things. 

"Could  you  return,"  he  said,  "from  the  celes- 
tial heights  to  which  you  have  ascended  long 
enough  to  partake  of  so  mundane  a  thing  as  a 
sandwich*?" 

"Oh,  yes.  I  was  just  pretending  to  be  absorbed 
in  the  scenery,  hoping  all  the  time  you  would 
suggest  food." 

She  took  charge  of  the  basket  with  a  feminine 
confidence  in  her  ability  to  administer  such  mat- 
ters. 

"What  a  fine,  stimulating  place  it  is,"  he  re- 
marked. 

"I  did  not  know  that  you  observed  such  things," 
she  replied. 

"It  is  unusual.  But  at  present,  under  stress  of 
favorable  circumstances,  I  am  moved  to  consider 
the  largeness  and  pleasantness  of  the  spot.  It  is 
so  removed  from  civilization.  I  can  picture  Poca- 
hontas  and  Captain  J.  Smith  sitting  here  on  the 
bank—" 

"The  canal  having  been  built  in  1830." 

"Well,  sitting  here  and  thinking  how  pleasant 
it  would  be  when  the  canal  was  built.  It  is  really 
a  very  large  and  inspiring  thought.  It  makes 
those  stirring  days  seem  as  but  yesterday." 


THE  FOUR-LEAVED  CLOVER     137 

She  laughed.  "As  a  moralizer,"  she  said,  "you 
are  superb." 

"Thank  you,"  he  replied,  modestly.  "Con- 
genial company  seems  to  bring  out  my  hidden 
talents." 

Frivolous  and  inconsequential  conversations! 
But  this  was  a  day  of  idleness  and  adventure, 
when  it  was  more  diverting  to  watch  stones  skip 
pleasantly  over  the  surface  than  to  hear  them 
plumb  the  depths  with  large  sounds. 

On  the  bank  beside  them,  he  looked  long  and 
determinedly  for  a  clover  with  four  leaves,  finger- 
ing the  little  plants  over  one  by  one  and  always 
seeming  just  on  the  point  of  finding  one.  But 
she,  standing  smilingly  beside  him,  when  he  had 
given  up  in  despair,  pointed  one  out  with  the  toe 
of  her  shoe. 

"That's  the  first  one  I  ever  found,"  he  said, 
pulling  it  through  the  buttonhole  of  his  coat. 

Before  them  through  the  tree  branches  they  saw 
the  moon,  pale  in  the  twilight.  But  as  the  light 
failed  and  the  sky  grew  dark,  seeming  to  close  in 
upon  them,  the  misshapen  sphere,  taking  on  in- 
candescence, assumed  charge  of  the  night.  They 
launched  their  canoe  into  the  silver  reflection  on 
the  water  and  dropped  slowly  down  stream,  fol- 
lowing the  straight  ribbon  of  bright  water  that 


138          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

ran  between  the  dark  and  mysterious  canyons  of 
trees.  She  sat  in  the  bottom  of  the  boat  facing 
him,  while  he  paddled  leisurely  with  the  tide. 
Her  light  dress  outlined  her  against  the  dark  back- 
ground and  her  face,  indistinct  in  the  darkness, 
became  a  memory  only,  wearing,  as  she  talked,  the 
expression  that  his  imagination  gave  to  it.  He 
felt  a  pleasant  sense  of  personal  nearness  to  her 
and  an  unexpected  satisfaction  in  the  remoteness 
of  the  rest  of  the  world. 

When  he  returned  to  his  room,  he  found  lying 
on  his  desk  a  note  from  Sara  saying  that  she  was 
returning  upon  such  and  such  a  date  to  the  city. 
He  read  it  hastily  and  laid  it  again  on  the  desk. 
Taking  off  his  coat,  he  inadvertently  put  beside 
the  letter  the  four-leaf  clover  that  his  companion 
of  the  afternoon  had  found  for  him.  As  they 
lay  there  side  by  side,  they  were,  though  the  re- 
semblance did  not  occur  to  him,  like  the  two  arms 
of  a  sign-post  pointing  in  different  directions. 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE    PAGEANT 

During  the  month  of  October  Sara  returned — 
bright,  smiling,  slightly  tanned  and  with  many 
new  clothes  William  had  never  seen  before.  She 
put  both  her  hands  into  his  with  a  fine  affectation 
of  abandon,  and  looked  laughingly  up  into  his 
face  in  charming  pretence  of  seeing  that  he  was 
really  exactly  as  she  had  remembered  him.  Her 
coquetry  was  always  diverting  to  him,  as  it  came 
just  up  to  a  certain  mark  and  stopped,  leaving 
volumes  to  the  imagination.  Whether  it  was  an 
alluring  bit  of  acting  or  an  alluring  bit  of  natural- 
ness, it  amused  him. 

She  had  been  anxious  for  him  to  meet  her  at  the 
station  in  his  automobile,  and  insisted  in  her  let- 
ters that  she  could  not  exist  a  minute  (carefully 
underscored)  after  arriving  if  he  did  not  appear 
with  the  car  for  her  inspection.  She  had  pur- 
posely omitted  to  tell  her  father  of  the  time  of 
her  arrival,  so  that  their  own  automobile  would 

139 


140  THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

not  meet  her.  He  accepted  the  expression  of  the 
desire  as  reason  enough,  even  though  the  desire 
itself  might  not  exist,  and  appeared  as  directed. 

As  she  sat  in  the  machine  beside  him,  he  was 
impressed  anew  with  the  perfection  of  her.  Her 
shoes  were  absolutely  new  and  fitted  her  as  tightly 
as  the  silk  stockings  drawn  over  her  well  shaped 
ankles.  Her  gloves  and  hat  were  new,  and  her 
suit  had  no  sign  of  a  misplaced  wrinkle.  A  bunch 
of  violets,  bought  by  herself,  blossomed  at  her 
waist.  He  felt  how  admirably  she  was  fitted  to 
the  purpose  for  which  she  was  needed.  For 
money  expended  upon  her  was  so  effective.  Her 
purpose  in  life  was  to  be  the  object  of  expenditure. 
Her  upkeep  and  adornment  must  always  be  lavish, 
as  if  every  day  were  a  feast  day.  And  how  well 
the  festive  garb  became  her !  A  thousand  dollars 
spent  upon  her  made  her  bloom  and  blossom  like 
the  lilies  of  the  field. 

"Sara's  reason  for  being,"  Mrs.  Carver  said  to 
William  one  day,  "is  to  spend  money.  That  is 
her  profession.  For  that  she  was  born,  nurtured, 
trained  and  is  now  kept  alive.  It  is  somewhat 
depressing,  isn't  it*?  The  preceding  generation 
gathered  the  harvest,  so  to  speak,  in  the  heat  of  the 
day.  She  in  the  cool  eventide  idly  scatters  it. 
That  is  her  contribution  to  civilization,  her  mag- 


THE  PAGEANT  141 

num  opus,  the  deed  by  which  she  is  identified  upon 
the  books  of  the  recording  angel." 

A  year  ago  this  doctrine  would  have  made  Wil- 
liam think.  Now  it  was  a  platitude.  It  was  the 
statement  of  the  necessary  state  of  affairs  that 
went  hand  in  hand  with  high  civilization  and  suc- 
cess. 

"I  am  a  spender  myself,"  he  said,  to  show  this 
state  of  mind. 

"So  am  I,"  she  replied,  "to  a  certain  extent. 
We  both  help  in  a  downhill  movement.  Sara  and 
her  kind  set  the  pace.  They  dissipate  resources. 
We  follow  them — we  must  also  dissipate  re- 
sources. But  with  this  difference — we  must  first 
obtain  the  resources. 

"I  have  a  hard-headed  husband  who,  when  we 
run  too  close  to  the  edge,  sends  me  into  retirement 
for  a  while  to  let  the  surplus  accumulate  again. 
He  is  old  and  wise  at  the  game.  You  are  young 
and  headlong.  Some  day  Sara  and  her  crowd  will 
drag  you  down." 

William  glanced  at  her  sharply.  "How  drag 
me  down?" 

"You  must  make  the  money  to  spend.  That 
necessity  will  dull  your  sensibilities  as  to  how  it 
is  proper  to  make  it." 

"Do  you  mean  I  shall  be  dishonest1?" 


H2          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

"No.  You  will  always  be  honest.  But  the 
list  of  things  our  generation  considers  dishonest  is 
daily  decreasing.  You  can  be  honest  in  their  eyes 
yet  often  be  unfair,  often  dishonorable.  Remem- 
ber it." 

"I  shall  remember  it,"  he  replied,  putting  it  in  a 
remote  corner  of  his  mind. 

The  engagement  of  Sara  and  William  to  each 
other  became  common  news  to  everyone  but  them- 
selves. They  were  invited  about  everywhere. 
He,  the  Fortunate  Youth,  received  everywhere 
the  adulation  and  admiration  he  deserved.  Veiled 
allusions  greeted  him  on  all  sides.  Consequential 
old  dowagers  disturbed  their  aplomb  to  be  grace- 
fully facetious  with  him  and  perhaps  to  whisper  a 
word  concerning  the  cap  of  Fortunatus.  Men 
cultivated  him  more  than  ever.  His  mail  was  big 
with  invitations.  His  telephone  rang  so  con- 
stantly that  it  was  necessary  for  Ruth  Dunbar  to 
sift  the  applications  for  his  time  as  carefully  as  if 
he  had  been  a  cabinet  officer. 

He  discussed  his  relations  with  Sara  with  no 
one.  Denials  of  the  engagement  issued  both  by 
the  girl  and  himself  had  only  served  to  heighten 
its  currency.  It  was  one  of  those  rumors  that 
must  either  be  confirmed  or  allowed  to  die  slowly 
and  painfully  of  its  own  weight. 


THE  PAGEANT  143 

Mr.  Barclay,  who  of  course  could  not  help 
being  aware  of  the  rumor  that  existed,  discovered, 
in  his  cold,  taciturn  way,  a  congenial  feeling  for 
the  young  man,  and  if  his  daughter  were  late  in 
coming  down  would  enter  the  room  where  Wil- 
liam waited  and  smoke  his  cigar  standing  before 
the  fireplace  in  order  to  listen  to  him  talk. 

It  was  during  one  of  these  talks  that  William 
first  heard  the  term  "war  orders."  It  was  a 
strange  term  then.  Probably  there  were  not  three 
people  in  the  city  at  that  time  who  guessed  how 
important  a  name  it  was.  Mr.  Barclay  mentioned 
an  organization  known  as  the  Federal  Arms  Com- 
pany, whose  stock  in  his  opinion  would  be  a  good 
investment.  And  William,  acting  upon  the  sug- 
gestion, bought  as  much  of  the  stock  as  he  could 
afford. 

Soon  after  this  the  New  York  Stock  Exchange 
opened  and  the  moneyed  world  stood  aghast,  won- 
dering what  crash  was  coming  now.  But  the 
stocks,  fooling  the  prophets,  went  up  instead  of 
down.  Federal  Arms  was  one  of  the  first  to  feel 
the  rise. 

By  the  middle  of  January  the  public  imagina- 
tion was  beginning  to  be  stimulated  by  the  idea  of 
war-orders,  and  the  stock  of  companies  having 
such  orders  rose  correspondingly.  A  rise  of  fifty 


144  THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

dollars  per  share  became  a  matter  that  caused  little 
surprise.  William  looked  complacently  upon  the 
quotation  of  a  hundred  dollars  a  share  for  Federal 
Arms,  although  that  meant  a  profit  of  twenty-five 
thousand  dollars  for  him — a  pure  gift,  if  he  choose 
to  look  at  it  closely,  from  Mr.  Barclay. 

And  a  proposition  was  presented  to  him  that 
proved  to  be  the  beginning  of  an  epoch  in  his  life. 
An  old  established  steel-casting  company  in  Alex- 
andria, whose  business  had  been  gradually  dwin- 
dling and  dwindling  until  it  was  barely  paying 
expenses,  had  the  opportunity  to  obtain  some  big 
orders  for  shrapnel.  But  the  controlling  interest 
in  the  company  was  held  by  a  gentleman  of  fixed 
ideas  who  was  opposed  to  the  making  of  war  mate- 
rials. However,  he  was  willing  to  salve  his  con- 
science to  this  extent — he  would  sell  all  his  hold- 
ing to  some  other  person  at  twenty-five  dollars  per 
share  (the  quoted  price  being  about  fifteen)  and 
the  new  possessors  of  the  stock  could  run  the  com- 
pany as  they  pleased. 

It  was  therefore  proposed  by  two  other  directors 
of  the  company,  who  held  practically  all  the  re- 
maining stock,  to  buy  him  out.  Having,  how- 
ever, but  sixty  thousand  dollars  between  them,  and 
the  margin  it  would  be  necessary  to  put  up  on  the 
stock  being  one  hundred  thousand,  they  came  to 


THE  PAGEANT  145 

William  for  the  extra  forty  thousand,  hoping  that 
he  would  be  able  to  write  some  combination  of  life 
insurance  policies  that  would  enable  them  to  bor- 
row the  money.  This  was  impossible,  but  Wil- 
liam, seeing  an  opportunity  for  profit,  offered  to 
put  up  the  forty  thousand  dollars  himself. 

The  three  men  therefore  formed  themselves 
into  a  company  for  the  purpose  of  buying  and 
holding  the  hundred  thousand  dollars'  worth  of 
stock.  William  was  able  to  borrow  this  much 
money  by  depositing  his  Federal  Arms  stock  as 
collateral  and  by  adding  to  it  a  large  fee  he  had 
just  received.  He  had  Louis  Warburton,  his 
lawyer  and  friend,  go  over  the  papers  in  the  case 
and  also  look  into  the  charter  of  the  Old  Domin- 
ion Steel  Company  to  see  if  there  was  any  clause 
there  which  could  be  construed  as  prohibiting  it 
from  making  munitions  of  war.  These  matters 
having  been  satisfactorily  answered,  he  felt  that 
he  had  entered  upon  a  deal  that  promised  to  re- 
ward him  with  a  large  profit. 

About  this  time  occurred  a  costume  ball  of 
great  proportions,  having  for  its  object  to  mark  the 
theoretical  passing  on  of  the  world  and  his  wife 
from  the  seeking  after  pleasure  to  the  wearing  of 
Lenten  sackcloth  and  ashes.  It  was  to  be  a  carni- 
val— a  gay,  a  properly  riotous  celebration  of 


146          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

Shrove  Tuesday — except  as  to  the  fact  that  since 
their  revelry  began  at  midnight  instead  of  ending 
there  as  of  yore,  the  date  of  the  festivity  had  to  be 
made  the  day  before  Shrove  Tuesday  instead  of 
Shrove  Tuesday  itself,  which  robbed  it  of  a  little 
of  its  flavor. 

To  this  William  was  to  go,  gorgeously  attired 
in  the  red  silk  costume  of  the  Doge  of  Venice,  in 
which  upon  Ascension  Thursday  the  ancient  ruler 
was  wont  to  cast  the  betrothal  ring  of  the  Re- 
public into  the  sea.  The  costume  was  historically 
accurate,  for  in  order  to  make  it  so  he  had  sent 
home  for  his  notes  taken  in  college  on  McMillan's 
lectures  on  the  Renaissance,  and  from  the  notes 
had  found  the  names  of  books  to  look  up  in  the 
great  Congressional  Library — books  illustrated 
with  colored  prints  from  which  he  pieced  together 
the  plan  for  his  gorgeous  attire. 

What  Sara's  costume  was  to  be,  he  did  not 
learn,  for  she  was  to  take  part  in  a  pageant  which 
was  to  be  a  feature  of  the  occasion,  the  nature  of 
which  was  kept  as  profoundly  secret  as  the  thirty 
participants  were  able  to  keep  a  secret. 

When  the  night  at  length  arrived,  the  huge  ball- 
room of  a  great  modern  palazzo  was  thrown  open 
to  a  throng  of  Folly's  children.  And,  if  money 
and  thought  and  care  had  been  expended  reck- 


THE  PAGEANT  147 

lessly  in  the  preparation  of  the  individual  cos- 
tumes, it  had  been  expended  a  hundred-fold  in  the 
costuming  of  the  huge  room.  It  had  been  trans- 
formed into  a  likeness  of  the  plaza  of  Saint  Mark, 
the  walls  masked  into  plaster  facades  of  the 
Doge's  Palace,  the  Library  and  the  Cathedral. 
These  were  gaudy  with  awnings  and  streamers. 
A  wild  maze  of  color  filled  the  mimic  spot — Pier- 
rots, Harlequins,  shepherdesses,  dancing-girls, 
Carmens,  Brunhildes  and  DuBarrys.  One  statu- 
esque girl  was  Diana,  in  flowing  drapery  of  soft 
silk  caught  with  platinum  and  gold  clasps,  bare 
feet  in  sandals  and  leading  on  leash  a  big  Russian 
wolf-hound.  She  mingled  with  cowled  friars, 
eighteenth  century  gallants  with  lace  at  wrists  and 
ballet  girls  with  stiff,  outstanding  skirts,  revealing 
an  unexpected  expanse  of  silk  stocking. 

William  found  himself  a  child  among  children 
— among  experts  in  the  game  of  enjoying  them- 
selves. Protected  by  their  incognito,  they  were 
more  joyous  than  was  their  usual  state.  He  was 
greatly  entertained.  But  as  he  was  beginning  to 
warm  up  to  the  spirit  of  adventure  of  the  affair, 
he  found  that  it  was  palling  upon  his  companions. 

But  if  their  interest  was  just  at  the  point  then 
of  flagging,  it  was  at  once  prodded  into  life  again. 
The  pageant  that  was  enacted  was  one  which 


148  THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

was  devised  to  stir  jaded  sensibilities  and  to  arouse 
the  sluggish  enthusiasm  of  men  and  women  to 
whom  few  things  were  new.  Repetition  of  old 
things  was  punishment  to  them.  Their  lives 
were  so  circumscribed  by  conventions  and  forms 
which  prescribed  that  they  must  dress  in  certain 
set  ways  for  certain  set  occasions,  use  certain  fixed 
phrases  to  express  certain  ideas,  amuse  themselves 
at  certain  conventional  times  in  certain  conven- 
tional places,  and  live  minutely  and  exactly  by 
rules  which  they  had  had  no  hand  in  making,  that 
in  the  instances  where  they  were  allowed  variety, 
that  variety  must  always  be  changing.  They 
tired  like  children,  of  the  second  appearance  of 
any  form  of  diversion.  It  took  skill  and  ingenu- 
ity to  cater  to  such  sensibilities. 

The  skill  and  ingenuity  of  this  pageant  and  the 
complete  understanding  of  the  problem  were  ap- 
parent in  every  detail.  It  had  been  directed  by  a 
professional  manager  from  New  York,  it  had  been 
coached  and  handled  and  patted  into  shape  by  a 
half  dozen  professional  dancing  experts,  actors, 
and  artists  in  the  production  of  stage  pictures. 

The  audience  was  quickly  seated  in  chairs  which 
attendants  brought  miraculously  from  nowhere, 
the  facade  of  the  Cathedral  of  Saint  Mark  divided 
cleanly  and,  rolling  upon  a  hidden  mechanism, 


THE  PAGEANT  149 

opened  to  reveal  a  stage  behind,  shielded  by  pur- 
ple hangings.  Strains  from  a  hidden  orchestra 
floated  across  the  room.  The  audience  rendered 
the  unusual  tribute  of  silence.  In  a  moment  the 
purple  hangings  noiselessly  drew  aside,  to  reveal 
a  lavish  and  gorgeous  scene.  It  was  a  skillful 
picture,  soft  and  appealing  in  its  harmonizing 
colors,  which  were  aided  and  brought  to  life  by  a 
wonderful  blending  and  contrasting  of  dim  and 
strong  lights.  The  eye  was  caught  and  held  by  a 
shaft  of  mellow  light  like  a  burst  of  sunshine  that 
floated  slantwise  across  the  picture,  falling  upon 
an  empty  throne  which  took  the  center  of  the 
stage.  The  chair  of  this  was  of  white  veined 
marble  and  upon  it,  gorgeous  against  the  snowy 
background,  rested  a  purple  and  gold  cushion. 
The  flight  of  steps  leading  up  to  it  had  the  polish 
of  fine  granite.  Upon  either  side  stood  seven- 
branched  candlesticks  heavy  with  gold,  and  over- 
head, carved  in  a  panel  that  seemed  to  be  stone, 
was  the  Egyptian  winged  sun.  Beyond  in  the 
background  ran  a  colonnade  of  big  shafts  crowned 
by  the  lotus-leaved  capitals  of  the  Temple  of  Kar- 
nak;  and  in  the  openings  between  shone  the  red 
glow  of  the  setting  sun. 

The  music  changed  to  a  weird,  exotic  march, 
and  there  entered  slowly  two  huge  negroes,  wear- 


150          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

ing  gaudy  striped  headdresses  and  short  kilts. 
Their  skin  had  been  oiled  until  they  seemed  to 
have  been  cut  from  polished  Numidian  marble. 
They  took  a  place  one  upon  each  side  of  the 
empty  throne.  Four  graceful  girls,  dancing  a 
quaint  conventional  figure,  followed.  Long  rose- 
colored  draperies  fell  about  them.  They  wore  no 
ornaments  save  gold  bands  at  their  foreheads  and 
gold  straps  upon  their  sandals,  which  caught  the 
light  as  they  moved — and  no  clothes  save  the  rose- 
colored  draperies.  They  lighted  braziers  upon 
each  side  of  the  throne,  and  the  red  glow  fell  like 
studded  rubies  upon  the  metal  armor  of  the  sol- 
diers marching  behind  them.  Under  guard  of 
these,  entered  captives — four  stalwart  young  men, 
selected  for  their  development,  bare  of  arms  and 
leg  and  wearing  chains — a  strange  sight,  if  you 
considered  them  as  twentieth-century  youths  ac- 
customed to  be  tailor  made,  but  admirably  fitted 
to  the  picture.  After  them  more  captives — four 
maidens,  barefooted,  in  short  skirts,  with  white 
arms  bound  behind  them.  Another  file  of  sol- 
diers. 

This  realism,  in  the  apparent  interest  of  historic 
accuracy,  was  rather  breath-taking  in  its  frank- 
ness. William  glanced  covertly  about  him  to  dis- 
cover marks  of  disapproval.  But  there  seemed  to 


THE  PAGEANT  151 

be  none.  The  appearance  in  public  of  young 
women  attired  for  classic  dances  had  made  people 
willing  to  accept  things  of  this  sort.  Also  it  was 
protected  by  the  fact  that  this  was  an  historic 
pageant. 

More  figures  in  the  procession  appeared,  filling 
the  stage  until  it  was  a  charming  picture  of  color 
and  arrangement,  a  rich,  decorative  scene  that, 
preserved  upon  canvas  with  the  same  skill  that  it 
was  arranged  upon  that  stage,  would  have  made 
a  gorgeous  mural  panel.  There  was  an  air  of 
expectance  in  this  inert  group  whose  completeness, 
save  for  the  lack  of  a  figure  upon  the  empty 
throne,  pointed  to  the  coming  of  one  more  impres- 
sive still.  The  soldiers,  the  dancing-maids,  the 
half-clad  slaves,  the  fettered  captives  turned  to- 
ward the  portal.  A  sudden  blare  of  trumpets 
without.  The  strains  of  the  orchestra  died  away 
and  to  the  motionless  tableau  was  added  silence. 
A  nicely  balanced  moment  of  suspense ;  and  then, 
as  the  violins,  beginning  again  faintly,  swelled 
louder  with  a  soft,  lyrical  strain — entered  the 
queen  Cleopatra,  in  an  inlaid  and  enamelled  chair, 
borne  on  the  shoulders  of  four  soft-footed  black 
slaves.  Splendidly  graceful — as  only  Sara  Bar- 
clay could  be — she  alighted  as  the  chair  touched 
the  ground  and  stood  for  a  moment  with  her  foot 


152  THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

upon  the  first  step  of  the  throne,  while  the  whole 
entourage,  in  a  great  wave,  prostrated  itself  before 
her.  She  seemed  to  have  taken  on  the  attributes 
of  the  young  Egyptian  queen.  She  was  superb, 
but  breath-taking — as  the  other  Cleopatra  must 
have  been.  She  wore  no  bit  of  fabric  above  the 
waist.  Her  corsage  consisted  of  two  gorgeously 
embossed  and  enamelled  disks  supported  over  her 
shoulders  by  rhinestone  chains.  A  girdle  of  daz- 
zling gold  and  jewels  encircled  her  waist,  and 
from  it  hung  a  skirt  of  shimmering  material  like 
cloth  of  gold,  which  stopped  above  her  bare 
ankles.  Her  ankles  shone  with  rubies,  and  her 
sandals  were  of  yellow  pliable  gold  that  bent  with 
the  movement  of  her  foot.  As  she  turned  to 
ascend  the  steps  she  revealed  to  the  audience,  with 
no  apparent  emotion,  a  beautiful,  graceful,  un- 
draped  back,  gleaming  and  white. 

Conflicting  emotions  possessed  William.  His 
whole  being  glowed  with  pleasant  excitement. 
He  witnessed  absently  the  remainder  of  the  spec- 
tacle— the  appearance  of  Csesar  and  Britannicus 
and  the  enacting  of  a  certain  part  of  Shaw's 
"Csesar  and  Cleopatra,"  selected  for  its  lightness 
and  humor;  the  classic  dance  of  a  half  dozen  girls 
clad  in  transparent  silk;  and,  as  a  finale,  the  excit- 
ing dance  of  an  agile  maid  whose  white  legs  and 


THE  PAGEANT  153 

feet  wove  themselves  around  a  pattern  of  swords 
thrust  into  the  floor,  in  a  maze  of  intricate  steps 
that  carried  her  thrillingly  close  and  safely  away 
from  the  sharp  edges. 

Just  as  earlier  in  the  evening  the  masquerade 
had  been  taken  as  an  excuse  for  forwardness  and 
freedom  of  speech,  the  pageant  had  been  taken  as 
an  excuse  to  go  as  far  as  possible,  in  order  to  cre- 
ate a  sensation — -and  yet  remain  uncriticized. 
The  girls  in  it,  for  the  most  part,  seemed  to  be 
mere  puppets,  dancing  their  dances,  clad  only  in  a 
veil,  for  the  reason  that  they  supposed  their  audi- 
ence would  be  interested  merely  in  their  freedom 
and  grace  of  movement.  It  was  strange  that  they 
should  have  been  willing  to  believe  that  the  old 
Adam  in  man  was  so  dead.  It  is  strange  that  they 
saw  no  element  of  hoax  in  the  proceeding — that 
they  had  agreed  to  unclothe  themselves,  as  a  re- 
sult of  the  suave  assurance  that  cultivated  people 
think  no  improper  thoughts.  They  were  doubt- 
less unconscious  that  the  audience  enjoyed  their 
candor  more  than  their  proficiency  and  grace. 
And  it  is  quite  possible,  for  that  matter,  that  the 
audience  had  deceived  themselves  upon  that  point. 
They  had  come  to  allow  themselves  a  wide  lati- 
tude in  such  things.  They  saw  costuming  in  their 
theatres  that  twenty-five  years  before  would  have 


154          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

frozen  the  population  with  horror.  They  saw 
their  women  at  the  bathing  beaches  and  in  their 
drawing-rooms  attired  with  such  carefree  syncopa- 
tion that  they  had  come  to  believe  that  reticence 
in  the  matter  of  one's  body  was  unimportant.  All 
of  this  fitted  in  nicely  with  their  philosophy  of 
life,  which  was  to  make  as  simple  as  possible  their 
moral  code.  In  all  cases  where  they  could  supply 
additional  sparkle  to  their  lives  by  a  broad  inter- 
pretation of  the  difference  between  propriety  and 
impropriety,  they  chose  to  follow  the  broad  inter- 
pretation. 

Historical  record  shows  that  one  of  the  first 
signs  of  decadence  in  a  people  is  their  willingness 
to  appear  in  public  unclothed.  The  frankness  of 
the  people  of  this  class  in  regard  to  their  uncov- 
ered skins  was  merely  an  incidental  symptom  of 
the  direction  that  their  lust  for  pleasure  and  luxury 
and  ease  was  carrying  them. 

The  guests,  stirred  into  excitement  by  the  frank- 
ness of  the  unusual  spectacle,  and  divided  between 
interest  in  it  as  a  pageant  and  enjoyment  of  it  as  a 
startling  exercise  of  poetic  license,  talked  of  little 
else.  Some  of  the  actors,  flushed  with  their  suc- 
cess, clasping  cloaks  over  their  shoulders,  and  with 
sandals  on  their  feet,  appeared  in  their  costumes 


THE  PAGEANT 

upon  the  floor.  William,  noting  that  Sara  was 
not  among  these,  followed  a  few  adventurous 
youths  and  penetrated  behind  the  scenes.  He  dis- 
covered her  at  length,  still  sitting  in  the  shadow  of 
a  piece  of  scenery  where  she  had  thrown  herself 
after  her  last  exit.  Her  body  was  covered  with  a 
purple  robe  and  her  sandaled  feet  were  crossed 
alluringly  before  her.  She  held  out  both  her 
hands  to  him  as  he  came  toward  her. 

A  provoking  smile  played  about  her  lips.  As 
she  raised  her  arms  the  purple  robe  fell  from  one 
rounded  shoulder.  Her  white,  smooth  arms  com- 
pleted a  picture  of  glorious  loveliness  that  his  tu- 
multuous soul  could  not  resist.  Fires  burned  in 
his  blood.  He  did  not  touch  her  hands,  but  in  an 
instant  found  her  warm  body  in  his  arms  and  his 
lips  upon  the  curve  of  her  ivory  shoulder. 

Sudden  sanity  brought  him  to  his  senses  like  a 
dash  of  cold  water.  His  arms  relaxed  and  he 
stepped  back  from  her  as  one  newly  awakened 
from  a  dream.  He  was  astonished  at  the  strange 
William  Spade. 

As  for  her,  her  poise  was  undisturbed.  "Why, 
Billy,"  she  drawled,  with  ironical  calm.  "Why 
this  burst  of  energy*?" 

Deliberately  she  reached  for  her  cloak  and  drew 


156          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

it  over  her  uncovered  arms.  Then,  with  easy  im- 
pudence, she  touched  him  in  the  face  with  her  fan 
of  ostrich-plumes  and  disappeared  through  the 
plaster  arches  of  the  cathedral  door. 

William  escaped  from  the  house  as  soon  as  he 
conveniently  could.  His  outburst  of  feeling  had 
disturbed  him,  but  also  it  had  filled  him  with 
excitement.  It  was  not  unpleasant  to  have 
strayed  out  of  bounds  and  then  to  have  found  the 
rule  against  it  had  been  repealed.  The  primitive 
frankness  of  the  girl  had  stirred  his  blood,  and  the 
stirring  of  his  blood  had  made  him  take  her  in  his 
arms.  The  world  had  approved  of  her  frankness 
as  exhibiting  a  cultivated  absence  of  prudery — and 
she  had  not  objected  to  the  embrace.  There 
seemed  to  have  opened  for  him  a  luxurious  ex- 
pansion to  his  sphere  of  freedom  of  action. 

Warburton,  returning  at  dawn,  found  him  sit- 
ting before  the  dead  embers  in  his  fire,  still  con- 
sidering this  phenomenon.  The  lawyer  stopped 
for  a  moment  to  smoke  a  cigarette. 

"I  wonder,"  said  William,  momentarily  de- 
pressed by  the  cheerless  morn,  "if  my  old  professor 
could  have  been  right  when  he  said  our  world  was 
on  the  down  grade." 

"Yes — theoretically  and  for  the  sake  of  some- 


THE  PAGEANT  157 

thing  to  talk  about,"  responded  the  other  cheer- 
fully— "but  as  a  place  to  live  in  it  is  quite  good 
enough  for  me." 


CHAPTER  X 

OLD    DOMINION 

The  stock  of  the  Old  Dominion  Steel  Company 
went  from  twenty-five  to  thirty,  from  thirty  to 
thirty-five,  showing  William  a  paper  profit  of 
•about  sixteen  thousand  dollars.  But  one  morning 
about  a  month  after  the  formation  of  the  holding 
company,  he  received  a  visit  from  Mr.  Schwartz 
and  Mr.  Temple,  his  two  partners  in  the  affair. 
From  their  air,  partly  of  determination  and  partly 
of  conciliation,  he  saw  that  they  had  a  matter  of 
importance  to  discuss  with  him. 

"Mr.  Spade,"  began  Schwartz,  immediately, 
"we  are  facing  a  grave  situation  at  the  factory. 
Our  men  have  served  notice  that  unless  the  insti- 
tution is  run  upon  a  profit-sharing  basis,  they  will 
leave  us  in  a  body.  There  are  plenty  of  other 
mills  only  too  anxious  to  have  them.  It  seems 
that  other  war-order  places  are  distributing  shares 
of  stock  to  the  men,  in  proportion  to  their  salaries, 
which  are  paid  for  by  monthly  deductions  from 
their  pay,  allowing  them  the  increase  in  value  of 

the  stock." 

158 


OLD  DOMINION  159 

"Why  don't  you  do  that?"  asked  William. 
"You  must  keep  your  force." 

"We  haven't  the  shares  of  stock." 

"Surely  your  holdings  and  Mr.  Temple's  would 
be  sufficient." 

"Oh,  no,  no.  We  couldn't  think  of  sacrificing 
our  personal  holdings." 

"I  don't  see  what  you  are  going  to  do,  then,"  he 
asserted,  determinedly.  That  was  not  exactly  a 
truthful  statement,  for  he  had  quite  a  strong  sus- 
picion of  what  they  planned  to  do. 

"The  thing  we  shall  do  is  this,"  replied  Mr. 
Schwartz,  setting  his  jaw.  "The  Old  Dominion 
Holding  Company,  of  which  you  and  Mr.  Temple 
and  myself  are  the  board  of  directors  and  the  sole 
stockholders,  will  sell  out  its  stock  to  the  Old  Do- 
minion Steel  Company,  in  order  that  its  stock  may 
be  redistributed  to  the  men." 

"I  object,"  exclaimed  William,  heatedly. 
"You  permit  me  to  help  you  out  of  a  difficulty  by 
furnishing  forty  thousand  dollars  for  your  pur- 
pose— and  just  as  I  am  about  to  begin  to  reap  the 
profit  I  expected  from  it,  you  crowd  me  out." 

"Your  objection  will  do  you  no  good,"  said  the 
other  coldly.  "Temple  and  I  vote  sixty  percent 
of  the  stock  against  your  forty." 

The  two  men  sat  stolidly  upon  their  chairs. 


160          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

They  had  the  might  upon  their  side,  which  was 
the  only  necessary  consideration.  They  did  not 
need  to  discuss  the  merits  of  the  case.  They  had 
only  to  explain  what  they  intended  to  do  and 
then  do  it. 

"I  suppose,"  exclaimed  William,  sarcastically, 
"in  redistributing  this  stock  you  will  redistribute 
your  shares  to  yourselves  and  my  forty  percent 
to  the  men." 

"Naturally,"  returned  Schwartz,  calmly. 

"You  see,"  added  Mr.  Temple,  blandly,  "now 
that  our  stock  has  gone  up  so  much  we  do  not  need 
the  assistance  of  your  forty  thousand.  So  we  set 
you  by  the  roadside." 

William  called  in  Ruth  and  dictated  a  letter 
addressed  to  the  directors  of  the  holding  company, 
objecting  to  this  treatment  and  asserting  that 
if  the  stock  advanced  in  price  he  would  bring 
suit. 

"You  can  put  yourself  on  record  if  you  want  to, 
Spade,  but  it  will  do  you  no  good." 

"Let  me  explain  something  to  you,  Mr. 
Schwartz  and  Mr.  Temple.  I  serve  warning  on 
you  now  that  I  can  get  back  at  you  later  on — if 
you  crowd  me  out  now — and  I  will  do  it." 

"The  bluff  doesn't  go." 

"You  are  going  to  crowd  me  out4?" 


OLD  DOMINION  161 

"Certainly.  The  thing  will  be  done  in  regular 
form  tomorrow." 

They  rose  to  go.  William  turned  his  chair 
back  to  his  desk. 

"Remember  what  I  told  you,"  he  said,  in  part- 
ing. 

When  they  had  gone,  he  called  up  Warburton 
on  the  telephone  and  asked  him  to  come  over  to 
see  him  as  soon  as  possible  and  bring  a  copy  of  the 
charter  of  the  Old  Dominion  Steel  Company. 

"Warburton,"  he  said,  "the  Old  Dominion 
Holding  Company,  as  you  know,  bought  four 
thousand  shares  of  stock  in  the  Old  Dominion 
Steel  Company,  for  two  hundred  thousand  dollars. 
Of  the  purchase  price,  Schwartz,  Temple  and  I 
put  up  one  hundred  thousand  and  we  borrowed 
one  hundred  thousand  on  the  stock.  The  Steel 
Company  now  proposes  to  buy  out  the  interest  of 
the  Holding  Company." 

"Paying  off  the  loan  to  the  bank*?" 

"No.     Assuming  the  loan." 

"In  other  words,  buying  on  a  margin." 

"Yes.  Now  my  recollection  is  that  their  char- 
ter prohibits  them  from  doing  that." 

"Yes,  it  does.  They  are  permitted  by  it,  as  is 
legal  in  some  states,  to  buy  in  their  own  stock 
when  they  have  a  surplus  sufficient  to  pay  for  the 


162          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

stock  in  full.  But  they  are  not  permitted  to  spec- 
ulate in  it." 

"At  present,  of  course,  the  company  has  no  sur- 
plus." 

"Then  the  action  of  their  board  of  directors  in 
authorizing  the  purchase  of  this  stock  is  ultra  vires> 
as  we  say — beyond  their  power.  Therefore,  if 
they  do  purchase  this  stock,  which  is  an  illegal 
procedure,  and  force  you  to  sell  by  virtue  of  the 
vote  of  their  own  directors  who  are  also  the  direc- 
tors of  your  company,  they  work  an  injustice  upon 
you." 

"There  is  no  doubt  in  your  mind  of  that  legal 
position*?" 

"None  at  all.  Of  course,  it  all  depends  on  the 
'last  guess  of  the  last  court,'  but  with  that  against 
them,  they  would  never  let  it  go  to  court.  You 
had  better  tell  them  to  back  down." 

William  considered  his  lawyer  thoughtfully. 
"I  think  I  shall  let  them  buy  it,"  he  asserted. 

"Let  them  buy  it?" 

"You  think  that  if  the  stock  went  to  seventy- 
five,  for  instance,  the  court  would  make  them  sell 
it  back  to  me  at  thirty-five,  the  price  they  paid*?" 

"The  court  would  be  bound  to,  since  you  were 
defrauded  of  that  difference." 

William  Spade  leaned  back  in  his  chair,  with  a 


OLD  DOMINION  163 

smile  of  satisfaction  upon  his  face.  "Thank 
you,"  he  said.  "You  see,  Warburton,  the  beauty 
of  the  matter  is  this.  If  the  stock  goes  down  from 
now  on,  they  take  the  loss.  If  it  goes  up,  I  get 
the  profit." 


CHAPTER  XI 

A    PRIOR    CLAIM 

One  afternoon,  as  he  was  about  to  leave  his 
office,  William  had  a  telephone  call  from  Warbur- 
ton,  asking  if  he  could  take  the  lawyer  and  a 
United  States  marshal  in  his  machine  to  a  remote 
garage  in  southeast  Washington,  where  there  was 
an  automobile  that  was  to  be  attached  for  a  debt. 
Warburton  was  that  kind  of  man.  He  never 
liked  to  walk  anywhere  if  he  could  ride  in  another 
person's  automobile,  he  never  really  enjoyed 
dining  unless  it  was  as  someone's  guest,  never 
went  to  the  theatre  except  upon  invitation — in 
short,  with  the  utmost  amiability,  he  hired  out  his 
engaging  personality  in  return  for  whatever  was 
bid  for  it.  However,  as  William  liked  him  and 
considered  him  a  good  lawyer,  he  did  as  requested. 

The  garage  in  which  the  guilty  automobile 
rested  was  a  tumble-down  stable  on  a  small  street. 
The  machine  was  identified  and  the  marshal  per- 
mitted to  go  about  the  mystic  rites  of  attaching  it. 

164 


A  PRIOR  CLAIM  165 

This  entailed  a  visit  to  the  residence  of  the  owner. 
The  owner  and  his  wife  and  two  children  lived  in 
two  rooms  on  the  third  floor  of  a  dingy  house 
nearby.  The  rooms  had  all  the  characteristics  of 
shiftlessness  and  careless  poverty.  A  broken  pane 
of  glass  was  covered  with  a  square  of  brown  paste- 
board. The  knob  of  the  door  was  gone  and  its 
place  taken  by  a  hook,  a  broken  lamp  shade 
was  turned  with  the  damaged  portion  toward  the 
wall — all  as  though  this  were  a  mere  behind-the- 
scenes  place,  where  the  easiest  means  of  upkeep 
was  the  best.  But  the  automobile,  considered 
presumably  as  the  coefficient  of  their  respectabil- 
ity, had  been  accoutred  and  kept  up  to  date  with 
the  greatest  care.  Self-starter,  electric  lights, 
extra  tires,  all  the  things  which  they  seemed  to 
feel  their  dignity  as  automobile  owners  de- 
manded— were  there  on  the  car. 

"If  you  wish  to  reflect  upon  the  degeneracy  of 
the  age,"  remarked  Warburton,  carelessly,  after 
their  mission  had  been  accomplished,  as  he  crossed 
his  knees  comfortably  on  the  seat  by  William, 
"that  sort  of  thing  gives  you  a  better  target  than 
the  high  society  you  were  shooting  at  several 
nights  ago.  The  rich  people  can  afford  their 
pleasures — these  people  cannot.  But  they  take 
them  anyway." 


i66          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

The  lawyer  thumped  his  yellow  cane  upon  the 
floor  of  the  car. 

"Gad,  how  I  hate  a  low-class  person.  The  old- 
time  state  of  respectable  poverty  had  a  certain  no- 
bility, don't  you  know,  attached  to  it.  Thrift, 
honest  pride,  saving  for  a  rainy  day — all  went 
hand  in  hand  with  it.  You  remember  the  old 
style  of  person  who  would  dust  off  a  chair  for  you 
with  her  apron.  These  were  the  salt  of  the  earth. 
But,  Spade,  they  don't  exist  any  more.  The 
poorer  they  are  today  the  bigger  the  bill  they  run 
at  the  corner  grocery.  Instead  of  saving  to  buy  a 
home,  they  buy  automobiles.  The  poorest  rented 
hovel  down  by  the  river  has  an  automobile  stand- 
ing before  it.  They  are  pleasure-mad — and  they 
spend  every  cent  where  it  makes  the  biggest 
show." 

"That  is  all  very  true,"  said  William,  good- 
humoredly,  "but  I'll  bet  the  reason  you  are  irri- 
tated now  is  because  you  think  you  have  carried 
away  the  odor  of  that  third  floor  upon  your 
clothes." 

The  other  brushed  a  possible  trace  of  dust  from 
his  trouser  leg — with  a  cavalier  air  of  disgust. 

"Well,  I  hate  the  person  that  puts  on  another 
layer  of  cologne  instead  of  bathing.  That's  the 
characteristic  of  the  class — show.  Why,  the 


A  PRIOR  CLAIM  167 

fresh  young  citizen  that  condescends  to  be  my 
office  boy — -at  ten  dollars  a  week — takes  his  girl 
to  the  theatre  and  leads  her.  down  to  a  two-dollar 
seat.  More  than  that,  he  takes  her  to  supper 
afterwards,  and  he  has  then  about  a  dollar  left  to 
carry  him  through  the  week.  For  a  while  he  ab- 
stracted car-tickets  and  stamps  from  the  office 
store  to  help  out.  That's  Young  America  of  the 
boasted  middle  class." 

"And  it  scales  along  like  that  right  up  to  the 
top,"  replied  William.  "Sometimes  I  secure 
twenty  or  thirty  thousand  dollars,  which  has  been 
held  in  trust,  for  a  young  fellow  and  he  starts 
right  off  at  full  speed  spending  it  as  though  that 
were  his  income  instead  of  merely  his  principal. 
I  think  people  are  beginning  to  lose  the  distinction 
between  income  and  principal.  It  is  all  just 
cash — suitable  for  spending." 

He  said  this  in  a  sudden  spirit  of  fairness,  be- 
cause he  was  aware  that  he  and  Warburton  were 
doing  much  the  same  thing  in  their  higher  strata 
as  were  the  people  Warburton  criticised  in  their 
lower  one.  They  were  all  expending  their  re- 
sources for  froth  and  show  and  glamour.  And  in 
expending  resources  right  down  through  the  social 
scale  they  were  expending  the  net  resources  of  the 
nation. 


168          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

He  dropped  Warburton  and  his  marshal  at  a 
point  directed.  The  lawyer  waved  him  good-bye 
with  a  cordial  nonchalance,  as  if  he  might  have 
been  the  host  and  William  the  grateful  invited 
guest. 

William  became  conscious  about  this  time, 
through  the  agency  of  a  sixth  sense,  of  a  familiar 
presence  upon  the  sidewalk  amidst  a  throng  of 
people  waiting  for  a  street-car.  It  was  a  large 
assemblage,  and  he  was  paying  but  scant  atten- 
tion to  people  who  were  not  seeking  to  occupy  the 
same  territory  as  that  over  which  his  car  had  to 
proceed.  But  a  magnetic  force  caused  him  to 
look  up  and  his  eye  met  -that  of  his  stenographer, 
patiently  waiting.  The  fact  that  she  was  talking 
to  another  .man  did  not  deter  him.  He  stopped 
by  the  curb,  and  offered  to  take  them  in  the  direc- 
tion they  wished  to  go. 

He  looked,  with  an  emotion  that  was  somewhat 
more  than  curiosity,  at  the  man  who  was  with  her, 
wondering  what  Ruth  Dunbar's  life  outside  his 
office  might  be.  The  man  was  tall  and  broad, 
with  an  air  of  whipcord  strength,  and  his  lips  met 
firmly  in  a  straight  line.  The  girl  introduced  him 
as  a  Mr.  Roth.  He  shook  hands  with  a  strong 
grip  that  would  have  momentarily  crippled  a  less 
wiry  person. 


A  PRIOR  CLAIM  169 

"I  did  not  catch  the  name,"  said  Roth. 

The  other  looked  into  the  clear  blue  eyes. 
"Spade,"  he  replied,  smiling. 

"Mr.  Spade,  I  am  very  pleased  to  meet  you." 

The  girl  eyed  this  performance  with  a  quizzical 
smile.  "Mr.  Roth,"  she  observed,  as  she  seated 
herself  beside  the  driver,  "is  particular  about 
names — and  indeed  any  sort  of  fact.  He  insists 
upon  being  right." 

Roth,  not  taking  this  as  banter  but  as  a  mere 
interesting  statement  of  truth,  arranged  his  large 
frame  in  a  sitting  position  at  the  doorway  by  her 
feet.  For  William  Spade,  a  certain  fascination 
attached  itself  to  the  presence  of  the  man.  He 
covertly  watched  him,  and  presently,  having  con- 
sidered him  for  the  space  of  perhaps  two  blocks, 
as  a  result  of  a  rough  but  accurate  character  analy- 
sis made  in  that  time,  drew  him  into  conversation. 

He  did  this  merely  by  explaining  briefly  what 
his  errand  with  Warburton  had  been  and  retailing 
somewhat  at  length  the  lawyer's  philosophic  re- 
flections concerning  the  lack  of  thrift  and  other 
staunch  virtues  among  the  poorer  classes.  He 
watched  the  Roth  man  narrowly,  to  see  how  he 
would  rise  to  this  subject.  The  man  rose  to  it 
earnestly,  with  a  certain  pedantic  certainty  of 
expression. 


170          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

"The  statements  your  friend  made  are  to  a  great 
extent  true,"  he  asserted,  in  the  manner  of  a  per- 
son not  giving  voice  to  an  opinion,  but  explaining 
rather  an  inflexible  truth,  "but  the  reason  the 
poorer  classes  make  just  as  much  show  and  osten- 
tation as  they  can  is  primarily  because  the  rich 
classes  do  it.  Cultivated  people  do  not  practice 
moderation,  or  the  art  of  living  within  their 
means,  or  any  of  the  drab  virtues.  That  fact  is 
made  evident  by  the  reports  of  their  actions  in  the 
papers — and  sets  the  pace  for  the  whole  social 
scale  down  to  the  man  that  cleans  out  the  sewer. 
Respectable,  frank  poverty,  or  respectable,  frank 
modesty  of  means,  is  considered  a  mark  of  inferi- 
ority. Everyone  must  make  a  show,  no  matter 
how  it  unbalances  his  life." 

"Well,  now — for  instance*?"  queried  the  girl. 

"Take  the  very  simple  case  of  a  nine-hundred 
dollar  clerk  escorting  his  best  girl  to  a  dance.  The 
greatest  crime  he  can  commit  is  to  be  stingy  with 
his  money.  It  is  little  short  of  an  insult  if  he  does 
the  thing  in  a  cheap  way — even  though  it  corre- 
sponds exactly  with  his  station  in  life,  and  the 
girl's.  He  must  endeavor  to  carry  off  the  per- 
formance as  nearly  as  possible  in  the  way  it  is  done 
by  the  socially  elect — taxicab,  flowers,  and  the 
rest  of  it.  Sometimes  he  hires  his  dress-suit." 


A  PRIOR  CLAIM  171 

"What  do  you  deduce  from  that  state  of  af- 
fairs," William  asked,  interested  in  the  man's 
didactic  certainty.  In  the  back  of  his  mind  a 
curiosity  arose  as  to  the  relation  Roth  bore  to  the 
life  of  the  girl  beside  him.  Under  his  veiled  scru- 
tiny, these  two  gave  no  hint  of  the  extent  of  the 
intimacy,  or  the  lack  of  it,  that  existed  between 
them. 

"I  deduce  this,"  the  man  replied,  "that  from 
the  top  down  to  the  bottom  we  are  expending  our 
resources  lavishly  for  things  we  do  not  want. 
The  rich  man  spends  a  thousand  dollars  for  a  hun- 
dred dollars'  worth  of  pleasure,  the  poor  man 
spends  five  for  one  dollar's  worth.  And  that 
means  the  loss — not  of  just  so  much  money — but 
of  the  staunch  virtues  of  thrift,  caution,  modera- 
tion and  plain  living  that  have  been  the  backbone 
of  the  nation." 

William  found  himself  considering  these  words 
— and  large  words  they  were — with  a  little  more 
respect  and  thoughtfulness  than  he  had  expected 
to  accord  them.  He  found  himself  letting  the 
man  measure  up  to  a  higher  standard  than  he  at 
first  awarded  him.  And  he  was  conscious  too 
that,  strangely  enough,  he  was  vaguely  weighing 
the  merits  of  this  man  with  those  of  William 
Spade — to  what  end,  it  was  impossible  to  say. 


172  THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

"The  loss  of  these  virtues — the  loss  in  moral 
fibre  and  stamina,"  continued  Roth,  "is  serious 
retrogression — not  for  the  individual  alone  but 
for  the  whole  country.  It  is  the  worm  in  the 
bud.  Carthage  and  Rome  and  Venice  and  pre- 
revolutionary  France  went  down  into  disgrace  and 
dishonor  from  just  such  causes.  We  have  a  na- 
tional duty  to  tread  carefully  lest  we  follow  them 
over  the  same  road." 

Ruth  had  told  him  that  she  wanted  to  go  home, 
as  she  was  taking  Mr.  Roth  to  dinner.  William 
drove  to  the  small  house  facing  the  park,  to  which 
he  had  taken  her  after  their  canoe  trip.  Across 
the  street  was  the  grove  of  oak  trees  shading  the 
hill  that  sloped  down  to  the  creek  and  forming  a 
broad  wooded  lawn  for  their  tiny  house,  as  if  it 
had  all  been  laid  out  for  the  purpose  of  furnishing 
a  view  from  those  windows.  As  they  alighted,  he 
asked  after  her  mother,  whom  he  had  not  seen  for 
fifteen  years  or  more.  He  did  not  go  in  then,  as 
it  was  so  near  their  dinner  hour;  but  said  he  would 
come  again  to  see  her — a  statement  Ruth  Dunbar 
did  not  think  was  meant  to  be  truthful. 

The  next  day  was  Sunday.  William,  in  com- 
mon with  other  hard-worked  social  and  business 
men,  slept  peacefully  through  six  or  seven  hours 
of  good  morning  sunshine,  arousing  himself  about 


A  PRIOR  CLAIM  173 

noon  sufficiently  to  get  up  for  his  newspaper  and 
read  it  in  a  desultory  way  as  he  lay  in  bed.  Yet 
once  he  had  thought  it  a  hardship  to  have  to  sleep 
in  the  daytime. 

About  half  past  one  he  walked  two  or  three 
blocks  to  the  club  where  he  sometimes  took  his 
meals,  and  had  luncheon.  The  club  was  deserted 
at  that  time  on  Sunday,  lacking  every  appearance 
of  festivity.  He  sat  down  in  a  big  chair  by  the 
window  looking  out  at  the  sunny,  depopulated 
street.  An  automobile  went  by  with  three  people 
in  it,  a  man  sitting  on  the  floor.  He  began  to 
think  about  Ruth  Dunbar's  friend  Roth — the  man 
with  the  absolutely  crystallized  and  certain  ideas. 
He  wondered  what  claim  Roth  had  upon  her — 
and  the  speculation  was  not  without  its  flavor  of 
resentment.  The  idea  of  someone  seeking  to 
marry  his  stenographer  was  in  the  nature  of  an 
affront  to  him.  Ruth  Dunbar  was  a  part  of  his 
life — his  business  life,  certainly. 

He  realized  that  what  Mr.  Roth's  claim  upon 
her  might  be  was  no  concern  of  his.  His  stenog- 
rapher's private  life  and  her  official  life  were  two 
quite  different  things.  The  one  he  knew  about — 
the  other  he  did  not.  As  he  thought  about  the 
matter,  he  decided  that  he  should  not  allow  this 
distinction  to  exist.  Since  she  was  so  important 


174          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

in  his  business  and  so  much  depended  upon  his 
business,  it  was  his  duty  to  take  an  interest  in  her 
as  a  person.  And,  he  reflected,  that  very  after- 
noon was  an  unusually  opportune  time  to  begin  to 
take  that  interest. 

Ruth  Dunbar  was  therefore  surprised  to  see  his 
automobile  stopping  before  her  door.  Her 
mother  was  just  on  the  point  of  going  out.  Wil- 
liam remembered  nothing  of  her  at  the  seashore 
except  that  she  had  been  very  slender  and  had 
worn  black  dresses.  She  wore  a  black  dress  to- 
day, and  was  still  slender — graceful,  he  thought. 
He  liked  her  soft,  low-pitched  voice.  She  went 
with  him  in  his  machine  to  her  destination,  Ruth 
sitting  on  the  floor  in  the  place  Roth  had  occupied 
the  day  before. 

"I  hope,  Mr.  Spade,"  her  mother  said,  "that 
you  will  take  care  of  my  little  girl  in  your  office, 
and  not  let  her  work  too  hard." 

"I  do  everything  I  can.  I  am  only  afraid  that 
some  villain  is  going  to  come  along  and  marry 
her." 

"I  sincerely  trust  so,"  asserted  Mrs.  Dunbar, 
with  uncomplimentary  fervor. 

"Judging  from  the  men,"  observed  William,  "I 
meet  upon  street-corners  with  her — "  He  paused 
eloquently. 


A  PRIOR  CLAIM  175 

Ruth  glanced  at  him  quickly,  as  if  wondering 
what  turn  of  his  mind  had  made  him  think  of  that 
incident  in  this  connection.  "You  raise  up  a  glit- 
tering generality,"  she  said,  "upon  a  single  in- 
stance." 

"Was  it  Richard  Roth  you  saw*?"  asked  Mrs. 
Dunbar,  conversationally.  "Richard  was  telling 
us  last  night  that  his  sister  had  been  so  fortunate. 
Her  husband  is  in  the  employ  of  a  steel  company 
in  Alexandria  that  is  now  making  munitions — 
and  the  company  is  giving  its  employees  a  share 
of  their  very  large  profits." 

"I  wish  something  like  that  would  happen  to 
Richard,"  said  Ruth,  thoughtfully. 

Presently  they  set  Mrs.  Dunbar  down  at  her 
destination.  "Now,"  he  asked,  as  he  and  Ruth 
stepped  into  the  machine  again,  "where  may  I 
have  the  pleasure  of  taking  you1?" 

"Home,  please,"  she  replied. 

"Is  it  necessary  for  you  to  be  there  for  the  rest 
of  the  afternoon*?" 

"No." 

"No  engagements,  plans  nor  expectations  for 
the  next  hour*?" 

"No." 

"In  that  event  I  suggest  that  we  look  for  trees 
and  meadows  and  things." 


176  THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

She  nodded,  smiling.  He  held  his  hand  out  at 
the  side  of  the  car  and,  turning  a  corner,  sent  it 
speeding  along  a  deserted  asphalt  street.  An- 
other turn,  a  change  to  macadam,  a  coast  down  a 
steep  hill,  and  a  pull  up  another,  a  broad  bridge 
with  a  tiny,  silver  stream  inlaid  in  the  dizzy 
depths  below,  a  mile  or  two  of  woods  and  fields 
and  occasional  houses  upon  the  one  side,  and  a 
screen  of  swiftly  passing  trolley  poles  upon  an- 
other, the  end  of  the  trolley  poles,  and  they  had 
been  transplanted  as  upon  a  magic  carpet  from 
city  to  country. 

More  macadam  roads.  Beside  her,  the  pano- 
rama of  far  stretching  fields — meadow  land  lush 
and  green;  young  wheat  fields  and  freshly 
ploughed  fallow-lands  quartering  each  other  with 
heraldic  precision;  distant  woods  and  the  indis- 
tinct mountains  afar  off.  The  damp,  earthy  smell 
of  the  furrow  rose  from  the  roadside  like  perfume. 
A  field  of  clover,  crimson  as  blood,  a  meadow  lark, 
yellow  breast  and  whistling  his  four  clear  notes 
as  he  flew  low  along  the  surface  of  it,  a  narrow 
stream  choked  with  water  cress  and  boys  wading 
barefoot  among  it — she  saw  as  things  thrown 
quickly  upon  the  screen  and  off  again. 

"Gorgeous,"  she  would  exclaim  in  delight,  and 
the  picture  was  gone,  to  be  rearranged  and  pro- 


A  PRIOR  CLAIM  177 

duced  for  the  next  automobile  behind  their  flurry 
of  dust. 

"Very  pretty  indeed,"  he  would  reply,  looking 
at  his  speedometer.  "You  like  the  weather  and 
the  green  things,"  he  added,  on  one  occasion. 

"If  I  could  only  see  them.  They  are  dragged 
across  my  eyes  so  fast  I  only  get  a  glimpse  of 
them.  I  should  like,  rather,  to  sit  on  a  fence  and 
look  at  it." 

A  brown,  untravelled  lane,  plunging  into  woods, 
came  abreast  of  them  and,  without  a  word,  he 
swerved  the  car  into  it  like  a  man  hitting  a  moving 
target.  She  gasped,  and  he  laughed  back  at 
her. 

The  road  widened  out  at  a  spot  deeper  in  the 
woods.  He  drew  the  car  to  the  side,  scaring  from 
the  underbrush  a  cotton-tail  rabbit.  The  auto- 
mobile came  to  a  stop  and  the  engine  ceased  to 
revolve,  leaving  the  woods  in  surprising  stillness. 

"Now  what?"  she  asked. 

"I  propose  to  find  the  fence." 

He  struck  in  among  the  trees,  she  following. 
The  wood  was  grown  up  with  brush.  Fallen 
trees,  whose  slumbers  upon  the  ground  had  long 
been  undisturbed,  disputed  the  right  of  way  with 
them.  He  held  whip-like  branches  aside  for  her 
to  pass.  She  felt  the  touch  of  his  hand  as  he 


178          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

helped  her  over  round  trunks  that  offered  her  no 
secure  footing. 

She  was  interested  in  herself,  as  she  followed 
his  lead  without  question  or  discussion — mildly 
wondering  where  their  course  might  lead  them. 
Once,  as  he  came  to  an  abrupt  halt,  entangled  in 
an  unseen  briar,  she  stopped  herself  unexpectedly 
with  a  hand  on  his  shoulder.  The  fabric  on  the 
shoulder  was  a  smooth,  soft  serge.  Unseen,  she 
laid  her  hand  upon  her  own  coat  sleeve.  It  had 
not  the  same  pleasant  richness. 

She  reflected  that  this  was  because  the  ratio  of 
cost  between  the  two  was  as  of  seventy  to  thirty- 
five.  His  coat  did  not  look  better  than  hers,  but 
it  was  better.  The  unstarched  cuffs  of  his  shirt 
had  not  the  ostentatious  sheen  of  silk,  but  they 
were  silk.  He  had  taken  pains,  even  in  the  mi- 
nutest detail,  to  align  himself  with  the  best  and 
richest — the  upper  few.  It  amused  her  to  think 
that  he  had  spent  money,  time,  energy  and  the 
work  of  his  head  and  hand  to  rear  up  a  barrier 
between  himself  and  her  (not  singling  her  out  in- 
dividually, but  inevitably  including  her  with  the 
others)  and  now  she  was  permitted  so  close  to  him 
that  she  could  feel  the  texture  of  his  coat. 

What  quirk  of  his  mind  was  it  that  permitted 
him  to  put  the  serge  coat  in  a  position  such  that  a 


A  PRIOR  CLAIM  179 

stray  briar  would  cause  it  to  be  touched  by  her 
hand"?  Why  not  have  remained  at  home  and 
have  avoided  this  contact  of  inequalities?  Did 
he  find  her  interesting,  was  he  merely  curious,  or 
was  he  just  the  seeker  after  adventure1?  Or, 
strange  as  it  might  seem,  did  he  momentarily  re- 
sent the  fact  that  he  had  found  her  devoting  her 
time  to  another  man.  It  was  a  thought  such  as 
only  a  feminine  intuition  would  have  prompted. 
She  made  a  grimace  at  the  back  of  his  head  as  it 
occurred  to  her. 

They  followed  a  path,  which  trailed  on  in  ap- 
parent aimlessness  and  ended  at  length  at  the  long- 
expected  fence.  This  fence  was  at  the  edge  of  the 
woods  and  commanded  a  view  over  a  field,  gently 
sloping  toward  a  road  some  two  hundred  yards 
away,  and  over  the  undulating  hills  beyond  the 
road.  Automobiles  passed  now  and  then  upon 
the  road — a  view  of  civilization  that  pleasantly 
accentuated  the  remoteness  of  the  spot.  The  deep 
shadow  of  the  woods  in  which  they  stood  fell  far 
out  across  the  fields,  and  all  the  trees  beyond  cast 
long,  dark  fingers  over  the  sunny  grass.  The  mo- 
ment had  the  melancholy  sweetness  of  evening. 

The  big  shadow  of  the  woods  lengthened  and 
enveloped  the  road.  It  climbed  part  way  up  the 
opposite  hill  growing  more  distinct  until  the  com- 


i8o          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

ing  dusk  wiped  it  out.  The  reflected  red  in  the 
eastern  sky  departed  like  mist,  and,  shining  wanly, 
one  lone  star  appeared. 

"  'Whilst  twilight's  curtain  spreading  far  was 
pinned  beneath  a  single  star,'  "  she  murmured. 

He  was  looking  at  her  as  she  spoke.  Presently, 
perhaps  something  of  the  influence  of  twilight 
prompted  him  to  remark:  "I  could  also  repeat  a 
quotation." 

"Could  you?" 

"It  is  something  like  'look  out  upon  the  stars 
and  shame  them  with  your  eyes.'  " 

His  grave  glance  rested  steadily  upon  her.  A 
wave  of  excited  interest  surged  up  within  her,  like 
the  water  of  the  ocean  swelling  out  over  a  calm 
beach,  seething  and  then  retreating,  leaving  it  as  it 
was  before.  She  laughed  softly. 

"Something  like,"  she  repeated,  looking  at  him, 
with  nothing  showing  now  in  the  eyes  but  amuse- 
ment. 

"Is  the  quotation  incorrect*?" 

She  met  his  glance  with  a  mischievous  compos- 
ure. "You  omitted  something*?" 

"I  did?" 

"Have  you  your  loose-leaf  note  book  here*?"  she 
asked,  by  way  of  reply. 

Wondering,  he  reached  into  a  side  pocket  for  a 


A  PRIOR  CLAIM  181 

small  book  to  which  a  pencil  was  attached.  In 
the  fading  light,  she  wrote  two  lines — and  tore 
out  the  page. 

"Read  it  when  you  get  home,"  she  said.  "You 
will  see  that  you  omitted  something  that  made  it 
quite  unsuitable  for  your  purpose." 

Amused  and  yet  surprised  at  their  unexpected 
crossing  of  words,  William  put  the  piece  of  paper 
and  the  notebook  in  separate  pockets.  And  well 
might  he  be  surprised — if  he  did  not  realize  the 
concession  he  had  just  made.  He  had  admitted 
that  she  was — a  woman,  a  fact  that  in  his  talks 
with  her  hitherto  he  had  been  unconsciously  ignor- 
ing. 

They  made  their  way  back  through  an  unex- 
pectedly dark  woods.  She  found  herself  fre- 
quently now  with  her  hand  upon  the  soft  serge 
coat,  for,  in  order  not  to  lose  his  guiding  influence, 
she  kept  close  behind  him  and  her  outstretched 
hand  brushed  against  him  as  frequently  as  against 
the  trees.  And  more  often  he  turned  to  take  the 
hand  to  help  her  over  rough  places.  The  touch  of 
his  coat  was  pleasant — as  was  the  touch  of  his 
hand. 

A  dim  lightness  ahead  marked  the  position  of 
the  road.  Out  of  the  darkness  the  shape  of  the 
automobile  appeared.  At  a  touch  of  a  switch, 


182          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

two  beams  from  its  big  eyes  lit  up  the  twilight. 
She  sank  back  upon  the  comfortable  cushions, 
watching  him  slowly  warp  the  car  around  in  the 
restricted  space,  until  the  headlights  pointed  the 
way  home.  She  saw  the  brown  road  give  way  to 
a  white  one.  She  saw  dimly,  obscure  objects,  like 
the  scenery  of  another  planet  than  hers,  moving 
quickly  by.  Now  and  then  blinding  lights  would 
appear  ahead,  blotting  out  the  road  and  the  dim 
scenery  until  the  car  appeared  to  be  careening  diz- 
zily through  space.  At  an  impatient  bark  of  their 
horn,  the  lights  would  lower  and  the  road  and  the 
earth  appear  again.  A  whirring  of  wheels  and  the 
light  was  gone  and  forgotten — an  intruder  upon 
their  world. 

A  feeling  of  contentment  possessed  her — of 
physical  ease,  of  soothing  motion,  of  pleasant  de- 
tachment from  her  own  life  and  from  the  ground 
itself,  as  though  she  were  indeed  floating  smoothly 
through  space  visiting  the  stars.  It  was  like 
awaking  from  a  fairy  dream,  when  the  light  at 
length  fell  upon  her  house  and  the  automobile 
came  to  a  stop  at  the  curb. 

As  he  bade  her  good-night,  he  was  thinking 
that  she  would  be  almost  the  first  person  he  would 
see  in  the  morning.  For  months  she  had  been 
almost  the  first  person  he  had  seen  in  the  morn- 


A  PRIOR  CLAIM  183 

ing — and  had  been  a  constant  companion  and  con- 
fidant for  many  hours  during  the  day — in  some- 
what the  same  impersonal  sense  that  his  telephone 
was.  And  in  all  those  hundred  days  he  had  bade 
her  good-morning  and  said  her  farewell  without 
touching  the  hand,  which  he  held  now. 

A  change  had  come  over  her — of  which  he  was 
conscious  but  did  not  fully  understand.  He  was 
conscious  of  a  change  in  his  attitude  toward  her, 
and  later,  in  his  room,  when  he  opened  the  paper 
she  had  given  him,  he  was  still  more  conscious  of 
it.  The  hasty  writing  on  the  leaf  said : 

"Look  out  upon  the  stars,  my  love, 
And  shame  them  with  your  eyes." 

It  made  him  laugh.  But  he  sat  for  a  long 
while,  leaning  back  thoughtfully  in  his  chair,  still 
holding  the  paper  in  his  hand. 


CHAPTER  XII 

A    PASTEBOARD    CODE 

Ruth  found  it  was  a  little  past  eight  o'clock 
when  she  entered  the  house.  Her  mother  had  not 
yet  returned.  The  younger  brother,  who  fur- 
nished the  air  of  masculine  stability  for  the  house- 
hold, was  to  call  for  her  and  bring  her  home  later. 
The  girl  lighted  the  gas  range  in  the  kitchen. 
Under  the  warm  glow  of  its  oven  she  made  thin 
toast  which  she  buttered  while  it  was  still  hot. 
Pouring  boiling  water  over  tea  leaves  and  adding 
to  the  table  a  few  Sunday  evening  accessories, 
chief  of  which  was  marmalade,  she  sat  down  to  a 
thoughtful  meal. 

She  might,  she  reflected,  have  been  at  that  mo- 
ment eating  a  more  sumptuous  repast  in  a  much 
more  pretentious  place,  had  she  chosen  to  do  so. 
Her  companion  had  made  the  suggestion.  But 
she  felt  that  she  liked  him  better  in  the  atmos- 
phere that  she  herself  was  always  free  to  enjoy, 
rather  than  in  places  which  were  part  of  his  life. 

She  did  not  care  to  see  him  in  his  own  environ- 
184 


A  PASTEBOARD  CODE  185 

ment.  She  disapproved  of  it.  It  was  no  secret 
to  her  that  he  had  invaded  the  circle  of  the  socially 
elect  calmly  and  with  farseeing  eyes  and  that  he 
had  matched  the  selfishness  of  those  people  with  a 
selfishness  of  his  own  that  was  as  careful  and  cal- 
culating as  theirs  was  careless  and  idle.  He  had 
focussed  his  eyes  on  success  and  he  rode  straight 
for  it,  not  caring  where  or  over  what  he  rode. 

In  his  business  he  had  been  of  great  benefit  to 
many  people.  But  if  he  saw  that  in  the  course  of 
that  business  he  was  starting  a  young  man  on  the 
road  to  extravagance  and  perhaps  to  dissipation 
and  ruin  by  furnishing  him  with  thousands  of  dol- 
lars the  young  man's  dead  father  had  not  intended 
him  to  have  until  later,  he  did  not  hesitate — but 
provided  the  money.  He  used  no  selection  in 
making  his  money.  He  had  a  hard  and  fast  code 
of  decency  and  honor  to  which  he  firmly  adhered. 
If  he  said,  I  will,  he  did.  If  he  felt  an  obligation, 
he  lived  up  to  it.  But  the  two  great  Christian 
standards — trust  in  God  overhead  and  the  unself- 
ish love  for  his  neighbor  below — he  did  not  under- 
stand. 

His  life  in  the  fashionable  world  had  set  up 
in  him  a  pasteboard  code  of  righteousness.  It 
seemed  to  her  that  that  strata  of  society  was  a 
muddle  of  false  ideas.  In  her  small  dealings  with 


i86          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

society  people,  she  had  met  many  with  high  ideals 
and  fine  sensibilities.  But  their  life  had  the  effect 
of  smudging  over  high  ideals  and  fine  sensibilities. 
Their  respective  candles  were  burning  under  bush- 
els. Their  faiths,  hopes  and  charities  were  dis- 
torted to  the  public  gaze  and  before  the  eyes  of 
their  own  kind.  They  did  not  discuss  faith  and 
hope  and  charity  because  their  overtrained  sense  of 
repression  taught  them  that  these  things  would  be 
dull  subjects  of  conversation. 

They  were  trained  to  be  of  the  opinion  that 
every  cultivated  person  had  all  the  virtues  in  his 
heart  and  lived  up  to  them  as  a  matter  of  course, 
and  that  it  was  simply  boasting  his  advanced  state 
of  civilization  to  speak  of  virtues.  It  was  taken 
for  granted  that  they  possessed  unvarying  fear  of 
God  and  unselfish  love  for  their  neighbors — but 
taking  these  things  for  granted  destroyed  them. 
They  substituted  for  conscience  a  confidence  that 
their  trained  intellects  would  distinguish  between 
right  and  wrong.  And  naturally  their  intellects 
sided  with  their  desires — which  searched  after  new 
sensations  and  caused  them  to  alter  their  code  to 
fit  the  case.  Their  righteousness  was  a  thing  of 
expediency. 

There  was  money  to  spend  and  a  broad  field  for 
pleasure.  There  was  an  abundance  of  idleness. 


A  PASTEBOARD  CODE  187 

They  were  idle  themselves  and  they  hired  footmen 
and  lackeys  to  stand  about  and  help  them  be  idle. 
Wherever  he  looked,  Satan  found  a  rich  field  of 
inactivity.  Men  and  women  kept  house  with  each 
other  and  changed  about  from  time  to  time  as 
their  fancy  dictated,  warding  off  the  stigma  of  it 
by  a  succession  of  marriages  and  divorces.  Their 
theology  narrowed  down  to  the  statement  that 
whatever  was  necessary  was  right. 

She  knew  of  these  things,  not  because  she  ever 
had  had  the  money  to  enable  her  to  rub  shoulders 
with  such  people,  but  because  a  number  of  fash- 
ionable women  still  retained  a  friendship  with  her 
mother.  Her  grandfather  had  been  upon  the  Su- 
preme Court  Bench  and,  as  a  young  woman,  her 
mother  had  been  well-known  in  the  Capital.  But 
the  financial  reverses  that  followed  his  death  had 
rendered  association  with  her  rich  friends  imprac- 
ticable. Her  slender  purse  permitted  her  to  see 
them  now  only  occasionally — at  the  woman's  club 
to  which  she  belonged  and  at  long  intervals  at 
luncheons  in  their  houses.  In  this  way  the  gossip 
of  that  world  filtered  through  to  Ruth. 

Ruth  saw,  in  his  every  move,  that  William 
Spade  was  a  proselyte  to  the  creed  of  these  people. 
She  was  aware,  from  his  acts  and  speech,  that 
some  experience  in  his  past  life  had  given  him  the 


i88          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

notion  that  the  world  was  against  him,  and  that 
every  advantage  he  gained  for  himself  was  but  an 
act  of  self-preservation.  The  creed  of  whatever 
was  necessary  was  right  fitted  in,  therefore,  ad- 
mirably with  his  desires. 

She  realized  that  she  and  William  were  of  two 
different  sorts.  She  had  the  simplicity  of  ideals 
and  desires  that  belong  to  a  God-fearing  and  in- 
spiring generation.  He  had  the  complication  of 
ideals  and  desires  that  belong  to  a  generation  that 
had  achieved  success  and  was  celebrating  the 
event.  She  had  the  instinct  to  conserve  and  to 
strive.  He  was  acquiring  the  instinct  to  dissipate 
and  sow  to  the  four  winds. 

With  an  earnestness  that  was  totally  uncon- 
scious of  the  inference,  she  assured  herself  that 
such  a  man  was  not  the  sort  of  man  she  would 
marry.  The  man  she  would  marry  must  be  strong 
and  brave  enough  to  curb  his  grasp  as  directed  by 
his  conscience.  He  must  not  be  so  glib  and  plaus- 
ible that  he  could  argue  down  his  conscience.  He 
must  have  humility — rather  than  make  a  god  of 
his  self-confidence — as  did  William  Spade.  Then 
with  a  flush  of  ashamed  amusement,  she  laughed 
aloud  at  herself,  for  there  was  no  occasion  to  de- 
cide this  question  in  the  case  of  William  Spade. 
And  she  had  already  spent  an  hour  in  deciding  it. 


A  PASTEBOARD  CODE  189 

His  greeting  to  her  as  he  entered  the  office  at 
midday  was  as  usual,  except  that  it  contained  just 
a  shade  more  of  friendliness.  There  was  a  blaze  of 
enthusiasm  then  in  him.  He  had  spent  the  morn- 
ing at  the  office  of  his  stock-broker,  and  he  had 
come  back  fired  with  conviction.  It  seemed  as 
though  the  war  stocks  had  paused  at  last  at  the  top 
of  their  stupendous  rise.  For  a  week  Federal 
Arms  had  been  steady  at  two  hundred  and  fifty. 
Old  Dominion  Steel  had  gone  up  to  one  hundred 
and  dropped  to  ninety-five.  Consolidated  Steel 
which,  starting  a  few  months  before  at  twenty-five 
and  marching  on  without  a  halt  to  three  hundred 
and  twenty-five,  had  dropped  to  three  hundred. 
The  value  of  these  stocks  was  imaginary.  The 
end  of  the  war  would  cut  their  price  in  half. 
Orders  had  been  taken  two  years  ahead  and  there 
would  be  no  more  orders.  It  looked  as  if  the  wild 
burst  of  enthusiastic  buying  was  about  to  fall  of 
its  own  weight. 

As  he  had  passed  that  morning  the  private  of- 
fice of  Mr.  LeFevre,  the  head  of  the  brokerage 
firm,  that  gentleman  had  emerged  from  it  to  shake 
hands  with  him.  The  Federal  Arms  stock  they 
were  holding  for  him  was  worth  a  hundred  thou- 
sand dollars,  and  he  was  a  person  the  firm  must 
cultivate. 


190          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

"Mr.  Spade,  you  are  going  to  sell  your  Federal 
Arms  soon,  are  you  not*?" 

"Tomorrow  or  next  day,  if  it  looks  as  though 
this  is  the  top." 

"You're  wise.  And  bear  this  in  mind.  These 
stocks  are  going  to  drop  just  as  fast  as  they  rose. 
And  someone  is  going  to  make  a  lot  of  money  as 
they  go.  Consolidated  Steel  will  be  down  to  two 
hundred  by  the  first  of  August.  Remember 
that." 

William  had  listened  absently.  He  was  think- 
ing only  of  the  profit  upon  the  stock  he  held,  which 
had  given  him  the  sinews  of  war.  He  was  now 
in  line  to  step  onward  toward  real  power  and 
real  wealth — to  make  himself  felt  in  the  daily  his- 
tory of  the  country.  Power  and  money!  It 
•seemed  that  he  saw  them  in  his  grasp. 

His  desire  was  to  make  a  great  deal  of  money 
at  one  blow — not  to  earn  it,  but  to  seize  it. 
He  needed  riches  to  maintain  his  position.  He 
must  make  a  big  gamble  to  get  it,  pit  his  own  in- 
tellect and  powers  of  strategy  against  those  of 
others  and  get  the  money  before  they  could. 

Upon  the  following  day  he  sold  his  Federal 
Arms  at  two  hundred  and  fifty,  realizing  a  profit 
of  one  hundred  thousand  dollars.  The  day  after 


A  PASTEBOARD  CODE  191 

it  dropped  to  two  thirty-five.  Old  Dominion 
Steel  dropped  to  ninety.  Consolidated  Steel 
dropped  to  two  hundred  and  ninety-five.  He  felt 
that  he  had  taken  his  profit  at  the  proper  mo- 
ment. 

"You  managed  well,"  Mr.  Barclay  said,  when 
William  told  him  of  the  success  of  his  venture. 

"I  think  the  high  point  has  come,"  William  as- 
serted, eyeing  the  older  man  intently,  wondering 
what  was  his  opinion  upon  the  stock  market  sit- 
uation. 

"That  seems  to  be  the  consensus  of  opinion," 
said  the  other,  noncommittally. 

"Some  men  are  selling  short,"  William  con- 
tinued. 

"Risky  thing  to  do."  The  older  man  turned 
to  drop  his  cigar  ash  in  the  fireplace.  "Still,"  he 
said  in  a  moment,  with  his  wry  smile,  "I  may  do 
so  myself." 

Those  last  five  words  crystallized  the  strength- 
ening intention  that  William  had  had  in  his  mind 
for  the  past  two  days. 

He  saw  the  risks,  but  determined  to  take  them. 
Everything  pointing  to  the  fact  that  he  was  right, 
he  felt  that  he  must  put  himself  in  a  position 
to  make  a  profit  from  being  right.  At  one  time 


192  THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

business  had  for  an  important  axiom — do  right. 
Now  its  axiom  was — be  right.  William  was  rea- 
sonably sure  that  was  his  condition. 

He,  therefore,  instructed  his  brokers  to  sell  five 
hundred  shares  of  Consolidated  Steel  at  two  hun- 
dred and  ninety  dollars  a  share.  His  rest  should 
have  been  troubled  that  night,  but  it  was  not. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

PAPER    PROFIT 

A  man's  wife  thinks  she  knows  the  quirks  and 
convolutions  of  his  character  better  than  anyone 
else.  But  she  does  not  know  them  better  than  his 
stenographer.  His  stenographer  sees  him  during 
the  burden  and  heat  of  the  day,  when  he  is  in  ac- 
tion and  his  mind  is  working.  His  wife  sees  him 
at  rest — and  what  is  so  uninteresting  as  a  ma- 
chine at  rest! 

Ruth  Dunbar  saw  William  Spade  in  action  and 
saw  the  workings  of  his  mind.  She  was  only 
mildly  interested,  but  it  was  strange  to  have  so 
intimate  a  knowledge  of  another  person's  affairs. 
It  was  part  of  her  business  to  be  informed  of  his 
bank  balance.  She  knew  his  holdings  of  stocks 
and  bonds,  because  she  looked  over  the  monthly 
statement  from  his  broker  and  checked  up  the 
charges  for  interest.  His  personal  and  his  office 
affairs  he  made  no  link  between.  She  made  out 
the  checks  for  his  office  rent  and  for  his  apart- 

193 


194          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

ment  rent,  for  his  telephone,  for  his  tailor  and  for 
his  garage.  She  would,  when  he  asked  her,  call 
up  any  of  these  and  make  complaint  of  the  service 
given.  She  would  buy  theatre  tickets  if  he  were 
giving  a  party  and  were  pressed,  or  thought  he 
was  pressed,  for  time.  She  had  even  ordered  a 
dinner  for  ten  at  a  fashionable  restaurant. 

He  was  considerate  in  asking  such  service  of 
her — else  she  might  not  have  been  willing  to  ren- 
der it;  but  she  found  it  interesting  to  do  these 
things.  His  enthusiasm  for  whatever  he  had  on 
his  mind  was  contagious.  When  he  came  into  the 
office  with  a  big  envelope  full  of  samples  of  shirt 
materials,  the  first  thing  he  did  was  to  spread 
them  all  out  upon  his  desk  and  call  her  in  for  a 
conference.  And,  sitting  opposite  each  other, 
they  would  have  a  splendid  time  deciding  which 
patterns  he  was  to  take. 

Their  relations  with  each  other,  however,  re- 
mained distinctly  that  of  employer  and  employee. 
Their  respective  lives  after  office  hours,  dissolved, 
as  far  as  each  other  was  concerned,  into  obscur- 
ity. Once,  to  her  surprise,  he  bought  her  a  pres- 
ent. She  was  looking  at  the  window  display  of 
a  picture  shop  which  adjoined  their  office  build- 
ing, when  he  happened  along. 

"I  have  just  made  a  hundred  thousand  dollars 


PAPER  PROFIT  195 

by  certain  stock  transactions,"  he  said,  after  some 
discussion,  "and  I  should  like  to  make  you  a 
handsome  present." 

"Oh,  thank  you.     That  one." 

She  pressed  her  finger  against  the  glass.  It 
was  a  print  of  Dante  and  Beatrice,  in  a  plain 
wooden  frame,  and  was  valued  at  fifty  cents.  He 
strode  into  the  store  with  her  and  purchased  it. 

It  amused  her — knowing  -from  the  broker's 
statement  what  stock  transaction  he  referred  to 
— to  think  that  this  was  her  share  of  the  huge 
war  profit  the  country  was  accumulating.  She 
was  glad  it  was  small,  for  she  could  not  quite 
bring  herself  to  believe  that  William  Spade,  and 
other  similar  speculators,  deserved  the  large  sums 
of  money  that  good  fortune  dropped  into  their 
laps.  But,  strangely  enough,  she  had  not  gone 
half  a  block  on  her  homeward  way,  when  she 
met  with  occasion  to  revise  her  opinion  somewhat 
— and  to  concede  that  in  some  cases  the  war 
profits  conferred  real  and  deserved  good  upon 
their  recipients.  The  occasion  was  the  meeting 
with  Richard  Roth,  whose  way  happened  acci- 
dentally to  cross  hers.  It  was  a  tribute  to  his 
perseverance  and  ingenuity  that  this  coincidence 
occurred  frequently.  He  was  accompanied  by 
his  sister,  Mrs.  Bullard — a  somewhat  unusual  cir- 


196          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

cumstance,  for  he  usually  preferred  to  stage  the 
accidental  meetings  unattended. 

"Richard  was  telling  us,"  Ruth  said,  in  a  mo- 
ment, her  mind  still  running  on  the  same  subject, 
"that  you  too  are  among  those  who  are  sharing 
war  prosperity."  She  held  up  her  picture.  "I 
have  just  had  a  present  from  a  friend  who  has 
recently  made  a  large  sum  of  money  on  war 
stocks." 

Mrs.  Bullard  considered  the  size  of  the  pic- 
ture. "He  must  have  made  a  huge  sum  to  buy 
all  that." 

"Everyone  seems  to  be  making  money  on  the 
war,"  she  continued.  "We  bought  fifty  shares 
of  Old  Dominion  Steel  Company  stock,  and  are 
paying  for  it  by  giving  up  half  our  salary  every 
month.  And,  my  dear,  we  have  been  living  from 
hand  to  mouth." 

"I  should  think  so,"  commented  Ruth. 

"But  we  were  fortunate  to  get  the  stock.  It 
was  allotted  to  the  employees  of  the  Company. 
Yesterday  it  went  up  to  a  hundred  and  ten,  which 
gives  us  a  profit  of  about  five  thousand  dollars. 
Our  dream  of  a  house  of  our  own,  instead  of  a 
rented  hovel,  seems  about  to  be  realized." 

"All  this  is  paper  profit,"  Roth  explained,  in 
the  interests  of  accuracy. 


PAPER  PROFIT  197 

"Oh,  yes.  We  have  to  finish  paying  for  our 
stock  first,  before  it  will  be  delivered  to  us,  so 
we  can  sell  it  again.  But  how  we  have  skimped 
and  saved  to  get  along  on  half  the  salary.  You 
know,  all  your  salary  is  never  enough.  And  half 
of  it!  It's  sickening.  We've  been  wearing 
clothes  that  we're  just  simply  ashamed  of.  And 
as  for  food — I  hate  to  say.  As  we  have  three 
children  it  is  almost  impossible  to  get  along  on 
what  we  have  had  at  our  disposal." 

"But  surely  you  couldn't  pay  for  so  many  shares 
of  stock  simply  out  of  a  salary*?"  Ruth  asked. 

"No.  A  thousand  dollars  we  paid  at  the  very 
beginning,  representing  the  savings  of  a  life-time, 
so  to  speak,  plus  the  proceeds  of  a  sale  of  furni- 
ture and  a  clandestine  visit  to  the  pawnshop. 
A  Jewish  gentleman  is  holding  my  engagement 
ring  as  collateral.  Isn't  that  frenzied  finance1?" 

"But  won't  it  be  glorious,"  exclaimed  Ruth,  "to 
have  your  house." 

Spurred  on  by  this  sympathetic  attention,  Mrs. 
Bullard  stopped  on  the  street  corner  to  draw 
painstakingly  upon  the  back  of  a  letter,  several 
squares  adjoining  each  other  which  she  explained 
was  the  plan  of  a  house.  She  extracted  some  pic- 
tures, taken  from  a  magazine,  out  of  her  pocket- 
book — a  colonial  staircase,  an  Elizabethan  bay- 


198          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

window,  a  little  Spanish  balcony  and  other 
heterogeneous  items  which  she  asserted  were  to  be 
incorporated  in  the  structure.  Poor  architect  to 
whom  that  house  was  entrusted!  But  she  was 
ecstatically  happy,  which  was  the  main  thing.  As 
Ruth  said,  here  was  one  case  where  the  war 
stocks  had  done  a  philanthropic  act. 

When  William  Spade  entered  the  office  in  the 
morning,  she  thought,  as  she  looked  at  him,  how 
much  more  praiseworthy  it  was  to  have  earned  five 
thousand  dollars  by  self-denial  and  much  sacri- 
fice than  to  have  earned  a  hundred  thousand  by 
taking  the  advice  of  a  friend.  There  was  more  of 
compassion  than  criticism  in  this  comparison. 

William's  training  had  been  such  that  it  did 
not  occur  to  him  to  doubt  the  importance  of  ma- 
terial success.  The  business  men  with  whom  he 
was  now  thrown  spoke  earnestly  of  the  financial 
prosperity  which  had  enveloped  the  country,  and 
discussed  means  of  making  it  continue.  They 
viewed  with  pessimism  any  signs  of  the  coming  of 
the  end  of  the  carnage  and  bloodshed  across  the 
water,  which  carnage  and  bloodshed  was  pouring 
a  steady  stream  of  profits  into  this  country.  They 
viewed  with  more  than  pessimism  any  signs  of 
their  own  government  being  drawn  into  conflict, 
however  righteous  the  cause,  because  it  would 


PAPER  PROFIT  199 

cripple  business  and  turn  away  the  stream  of 
profits.  They  had  translated  all  their  emotions 
into  terms  of  dollars  and  cents.  Statesmen  and 
eloquent  men  spoke  of  honor  and  glory  and  pa- 
triotism, but  the  nation  at  large,  while  echoing 
their  words,  thought  always  of  the  cost  of  these 
things  and  down  in  their  hearts,  appeared  to  have 
come  to  the  conclusion  that  they  were  luxuries — 
too  expensive  for  a  great  commercial  nation,  whose 
business  could  not  be  interrupted. 

She  saw  him  gradually  hardening  under  this 
influence.  She  saw  him  absorbing,  grain  by 
grain,  the  drug  of  selfishness,  until  the  natural 
generosity  in  him  was  inert.  She  saw  him  adopt- 
ing new  rules  of  life,  which  centered  about  the 
principle  that  one  must,  before  all  things,  pro- 
tect and  nurture  and  advance  his  own  interests. 
After  that  he  might  give  thought  to  the  welfare 
of  others.  The  finer  sensibilities  of  his  nature 
were  growing  less  distinct  and  materialism  was 
taking  command  of  his  aims  and  impulses. 

She  was  sorry  for  that.  For  her  service  with 
him  had  developed  in  her,  in  spite  of  her  disap- 
proval of  him,  a  loyalty  to  him.  She  recognized 
in  him  an  efficient  general  in  the  affairs  in  which 
he,  and  she  in  a  smaller  way,  were  engaged;  and 
her  heart  said,  "Vive  le  roi." 


CHAPTER  XIV 

THE  LEOPARD'S  CAGE 

About  ten  o'clock  one  morning  Ruth  answered 
the  ring  of  the  office  telephone. 

"I  wish  to  speak  to  Mr.  Spade,"  a  voice  in  the 
instrument  said — a  cultivated  yet  precise  voice, 
carrying  with  it  the  inference  that  nothing  fur- 
ther was  necessary  than  that  its  owner  should 
say  simply  that  such  and  such  a  desire  existed 
in  her  bosom. 

"Who  shall  I  say  wishes  to  speak  to  him?" 
asked  Ruth. 

"You  need  not  say."  The  voice  was  unpleas- 
antly curt. 

Ruth  smiled.  "This  is  an  office,"  she  ex- 
plained. "It  is  customary  for  us  to  know." 

"I  am  aware  that  it  is  an  office,"  returned  the 
voice. 

Ruth  reflected.  Here  was  evidently  a  person 
who  had  been  roused  too  early  in  the  morning. 

"I  am  sorry  to  be  annoying,"  she  explained, 
smoothly.  "But  Mr.  Spade  has  been  very  much 

200 


THE  LEOPARD'S  CAGE  201 

worried  of  late  by  certain  people.  It  is  difficult 
for  me  to  recognize  voices  over  the  telephone." 

There  was  a  slight  pause.  Then  the  person  at 
the  other  end  of  the  wire,  her  irascibility  suddenly 
gone,  said,  "Please  say  this  is  Miss  Barclay." 

Ruth  raised  her  eyebrows.  The  thought  came 
to  her  that  it  would  be  necessary  for  William 
Spade  in  his  future  days  to  be  diplomatic  early 
in  the  morning  if  such  were  Miss  Barclay's  usual 
moods.  This  did  not  promise  much  contentment 
and  happiness.  However,  she  did  not  have  space 
then  to  ponder  on  this  phase  of  the  situation. 
She  hastened  to  announce  to  William  the  name 
of  the  fair  suppliant  for  audience  with  him,  and 
was  not  surprised  to  see  him  leave  the  office  shortly 
afterwards. 

Not  many  minutes  later,  William  was  helping 
Sara  into  his  automobile.  He  discovered,  as 
Ruth  guessed,  that  the  lady  had  been  aroused  a 
little  too  early  in  the  morning.  Noon  was  her 
luxurious  idea  of  dawn,  and  she  did  not  begin 
seeing  people  until  three  or  four  o'clock,  by  which 
time  she  was  ready  to  assume  the  splendid  car- 
riage of  her  shoulders  and  her  mellow  pleasant- 
ness of  voice  and  manner.  But  to  surprise  her 
into  wakefulness  at  ten-thirty  in  the  morning 
was  expecting  too  much.  Of  course  at  that  time 


202  THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

she  could  be  nothing  but  natural — the  primitive 
Sara,  experiencing  no  outward  excitement  to 
stimulate  loveliness  of  character. 

It  developed  that  she  was  being  presented  with 
a  new  automobile  for  her  summer  use,  and,  since 
she  was  to  leave  the  city  in  a  day  or  two,  it  was 
necessary  that  she  should  make  her  choice  imme- 
diately. Her  father  had,  in  his  peremptory  man- 
ner, made  several  appointments  for  her  to  see 
dealers  between  the  hours  of  eleven  and  twelve, 
which  he  expected  her  to  keep. 

"I  had  to  have  your  opinion  on  the  car,"  she 
said  to  William.  "So  I  finally  persuaded  the 
goddess  who  answers  your  telephone  to  let  me  ask 
you  to  come." 

"She  was  merely  following  my  instructions," 
he  observed. 

"You  have  so  many  silly  rules.  Every  busi- 
ness man  spends  about  three-fourths  of  his  time 
trying  to  make  himself  seem  important.  You 
were  probably  reading  your  newspaper  all  the 
time." 

"The  irritating  part  about  that  to  you  is  that 
you  can't  be  sure." 

She  yawned  frankly,  as  fitting  reply  to  this. 
"What  makes  you  creep  about  the  streets'?"  she 
asked  him,  with  an  insulting  lack  of  emotion. 


THE  LEOPARD'S  CAGE  203 

"Can't  this  old  machine  move  at  more  than  three 
miles  an  hour?" 

"Where  did  you  get  that  disposition?" 

Quick  as  a  flash  her  manner  changed  and  she 
leaned  forward  with  a  dazzling  smile. 

"Don't  you  like  it*?"  she  asked. 

He  laughed  at  her  swiftly  adopted  coquetry. 
"Is  that  your  disposition*?"  he  demanded. 

"For  my  friends." 

They  visited  four  or  five  motor  agencies.  In 
these  she  sat  or  walked  about  in  a  restless  way,  in- 
terrupting long  arguments,  asking  petty  questions, 
ridiculing  any  speech  of  William's  which  seemed 
to  denote  a  knowledge  of  the  subject,  amusing  her- 
self by  irritating  everyone  and  smoothing  them 
over  with  her  bland  smile  when  she  felt  she  had 
scored  too  heavily. 

"Great  day !  You're  spoiled,"  exclaimed  Wil- 
liam, suspending  for  a  moment  his  investigations 
under  the  hood  of  a  machine. 

"Don't  you  think  I  am  charming1?"  she  de- 
manded, when  they  were  in  his  automobile 
again. 

"I  think  I  shall  recommend  to  your  father  cor- 
poral punishment  for  you." 

Again  the  dazzling  smile.  "Do  you  love  me1?" 
she  asked,  sweetly. 


204  THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

He  looked  at  her  seriously,  weighing  a  number 
of  things  in  his  mind. 

"Suppose  I  did  say  I  loved  you,"  he  said,  at 
length,  calmly.  "Would  that  satisfy  your 
fancy?" 

She  had  a  frivolous  retort  ready,  but  did  not 
say  it.  She  thought  of  a  serious  speech,  which 
was  too  serious.  And  then  the  time  for  replying 
having  passed,  she  remained  silent.  Had  she 
dared  to  be  sure  she  loved  him,  the  game  could 
have  ended  there.  Had  she  not  been  fascinated 
by  his  personality,  mystified  by  his  assumption 
of  an  almost  contemptuous  superiority  over  her, 
forever  uncertain  whether  her  charms  would  be 
valid  upon  him,  she  would  have  taken  pleasure, 
in  her  present  mood,  in  rebuffing  him  with  a  hard 
jolt.  She  could  not  adopt  either  alternative. 
She  could  not  hold  him  and  she  did  not  want  to 
let  him  go.  So  she  said: 

"I  wish  you  would  be  careful  where  you  drive. 
We  almost  collided  with  that  car.  My  life  is 
precious." 

"You  haven't  answered  my  question." 

"I  didn't  know  you  wanted  me  to.  What  was 
the  question — as  to  your  loving  me.  Why,  my 
boy,  I  have  so  many  men  loving  me  now  I'm  about 
crazy." 


THE  LEOPARD'S  CAGE  205 

In  a  most  uncomplimentary  manner,  he  began 
to  laugh.  "Who  are  they*?"  he  demanded,  with 
an  appearance  of  incredulity. 

"They  are  too  numerous  to  mention.  Louis 
Warburton  is  the  last  one — unless  you  include 
yourself,"  she  added,  with  satanic  composure. 

"Warburton !"  he  exclaimed. 

She  examined  him  leisurely,  speculating  as  to 
whether  that  name  could  draw  a  spark  of  jeal- 
ousy and  wondering,  if  the  jealousy  did  spark, 
whether  he  could  be  more,  or  less,  entertaining. 

"Does  that  make  you  jealous*?"  she  demanded, 
at  length,  weary  of  simply  letting  the  problem 
lie,  awaiting  decision,  in  her  brain. 

"Boiling,"  he  replied,  cheerfully. 

"I  believe  there  is  no  pigeon-hole  for  jealousy 
in  your  mind.  You  are  a  mere  machine." 

He  gave  her  a  long,  curious  glance. 

"Think  of  your  saying  that.  Your  entire  pub- 
lic manner  is  a  machine-made  product,  applied  for 
the  sake  of  appearances.  When  there  is  no  pub- 
lic of  importance  present,  you  are  a  spitfire.  Sit- 
ting down  to  breakfast  with  you  every  day  would 
be  like  being  one  of  these  fellows  who  sits  in  a  cage 
with  a  leopard." 

He  said  it  experimentally,  because  it  amused 
him  now  and  then  to  prod  her  into  activity — but 


206          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

he  knew  how  near  to  the  truth  the  statement  was. 
She  concealed  a  yawn  behind  her  fan. 

"Billy,  you  bore  me,"  she  said. 

When  he  had  stopped  before  her  house,  she 
still  remained  seated.  "We  have  not  decided 
upon  the  automobile,"  she  remarked. 

"The  twin-six  is  the  best  one,"  he  said,  tenta- 
tively. 

''Very  well.     I  shall  get  it." 


CHAPTER  XV 

THE    INNER    VOICE 

In  selling  Consolidated  Steel  short,  William 
Spade  had  overlooked  one  fact  that  a  multitude 
of  other  people  had  already  had  the  same  idea. 
For  a  week  or  two  before  he  had  sold  his  five  hun- 
dred shares  people  had  been  saying  that  it  could 
not  possibly  go  a  point  higher  and  had  been  back- 
ing their  judgment  by  selling  freely.  This  will- 
ingness to  sell  had  put  such  a  quantity  of  the 
stock  on  the  market  that  the  price  began  to  re- 
cede. And  the  more  it  receded  the  more  con- 
vinced people  became  that  it  was  due  to  go  down 
as  fast  as  it  had  gone  up.  William  Spade  was 
one  of  these.  He  was  one  of  a  thousand  or  so 
who  had  sold  when  the  stock  was  at  two  hundred 
and  ninety. 

There  was  such  a  horde  of  these  that  the  stock, 
after  first  dropping  to  two  hundred  and  eighty, 
began  to  rise.  More  speculators  sold  at  that 
price.  Then  a  large  contingent  who  had  sold 
short  at  three-twenty-five  came  to  the  conclusion 
that  forty-five  dollars  a  share  was  a  reasonable 

207 


208          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

profit  and  consolidated  their  winnings  by  purchas- 
ing stock  to  cover  their  obligations  from  those  who 
were  selling  short  at  two  hundred  and  eighty. 
This  held  the  price  up  and  many  persons,  who  had 
sold  at  anywhere  from  three-twenty-five  down, 
bought  and  took  their  profit. 

Now  a  number  of  the  timid  sheep  who  had  sold 
at  two-eighty  ran  to  cover  and  bought  at  two- 
eighty-five  to  keep  from  losing  more.  Other 
"shorts"  began  to  come  to  cover  before  they  had 
lost  their  profits.  There  was  a  multitude  of  or- 
ders to  buy  and  not  many  orders  to  sell.  The 
stock  went  to  ninety — to  ninety-five.  Hundreds 
who  had  not  yet  covered,  made  a  frantic  effort 
to  get  tangible  shares  to  put  in  place  of  the  imag- 
inary ones  they  had  sold.  There  was  a  large  de- 
mand and  not  much  supply.  The  stock  went  to 
three-ten,  to  three-twenty,  to  three-thirty.  The 
higher  it  went  the  more  reluctant  were  people  to 
sell,  believing  the  rise  was  still  to  continue. 

When  it  became  known  that  so  many  specula- 
tors had  been  caught  in  this  flare-back,  the  prac- 
tice of  selling  short  on  that  stock  became  decidedly 
unpopular.  There  were  still  hundreds  who  had 
sold  short  and  had  not  yet  covered.  Some  of 
these  were  buying  at  whatever  price  they  could,  in 
order  to  get  rid  of  their  obligations — sending  the 


THE  INNER  VOICE  209 

stock  up  daily.  Others  were  "sitting  tight,"  con- 
vinced that  the  rise  was  only  temporary  and  that 
they  would  soon  be  in  a  position  to  escape  with 
whole  skins. 

William  Spade  was  in  this  latter  class.  While 
not  a  little  disturbed  by  the  unexpected  turn  of 
affairs,  he  still  believed  he  was  right  in  his  first 
diagnosis  of  the  matter  and  that  the  stock  was  still 
due  for  a  decline.  Naturally  it  disturbed  him  to 
take  his  pencil  and  figure  out  that,  with  the  price 
at  three-fifty,  he  had  lost  just  thirty  thousand 
dollars. 

But  his  confidence  in  his  own  judgment  was 
strong,  and  his  sub-conscious  faith  in  his  luck  was 
stronger.  He  drew  no  long  face.  His  sporting 
spirit  was  good.  Thirty  thousand  dollars  was 
thirty  thousand  dollars,  but  if  he  lost  it  it  was 
spilt  milk  and,  as  such,  was  not  worth  crying  over. 

But  when  the  stock  reached  four  hundred,  the 
thirty  thousand  became  nearly  sixty  thousand. 
The  loss  of  sixty  thousand  dollars  was  stupendous. 
The  spilled-milk  theory  would  not  cover  that. 
He  was  stubborn.  He  rebelled  at  the  idea  of 
losing  such  a  sum.  And  his  pride  galled  him.  It 
was  like  a  lash  upon  his  flesh  to  think  that  his 
much  vaunted  judgment  had  cost  him  the  great 
price  of  sixty  thousand  dollars. 


210  THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

Warburton  came  to  visit  him  one  day ;  and  Wil- 
liam, his  head  and  heart — in  fact  his  whole  life — 
being  full  of  but  the  one  thing,  unburdened  his 
mind.  It  was  bitter  to  have  to  admit  to  this  man, 
who  had  looked  up  to  William  Spade  as  a  sort  of 
semi-god,  whose  judgment  was  never  wrong  and 
whose  luck  was  perennial,  that  he  had  steered  his 
craft  upon  the  rocks.  But  he  must  tell  someone. 
He  was  but  human — he  hungered  for  sympathy. 

"Hard  luck,  old  fellow,"  observed  Warburton, 
in  the  easy  way  he  took  the  troubles  of  others. 
"Now  you'll  have  to  get  after  the  Old  Dominion 
Steel  Company  and  make  them  pay  the  piper." 

"I've  been  thinking  of  it." 

"Thinking  of  it !  As  your  lawyer,  I  am  going 
to  do  it.  I  shall  write  the  letter  today.  And  par- 
ticularly appropriate  it  is.  If  one  steel  company 
steals  from  you,  you  steal  from  another  steel  com- 
pany to  pay.  Very  neat,  what?" 

"I  don't  like  the  word  'stetil.'  " 

"Poietic  license,  my  boy.  Just  to  complete  the 
epigram.  But  I  shall  write  the  letter.  Cheer 
up." 

"Don't  write  the  letter  until  I  tell  you." 

The  lawyer  paused  with  his  hand  upon  the 
door. 

"When,"  he  asked,  with  an  affectation  of  care- 


THE  INNER  VOICE  211 

lessness,  "are  you  going  north  to  see  the  divine 
Sara?' 

"First  week  in  August.     And  you?" 

"Later." 

Toward  the  last  of  July,  Ruth  Dunbar  was 
given  a  two  weeks'  vacation.  She  and  her  mother 
were  to  spend  the  time  at  Starkwether's  hotel  at 
Bound  Beach.  The  office  was  a  dismal  place 
without  her  presence.  In  fact  the  city  was  dreary 
anyway.  All  the  houses  William  was  accustomed 
to  visit  in  the  winter  were  boarded  up  with  wooden 
shutters.  His  club  seemed  to  be  put  away  for  the 
summer.  Curtains  were  down,  chandeliers  done 
up  in  netting,  the  chairs  enveloped  in  Mother- 
Hubbard  gowns.  It  was  stuffy  and  hot  there,  and 
his  footsteps  echoed  in  the  empty  rooms. 

If  he  wished  amusement,  he  could  have  a  prac- 
tical demonstration  of  the  principle  of  the  fireless 
cooker,  by  going  to  the  theatre  or  to  any  one  of  a 
hundred  moving  picture  places.  He  spent  all  his 
afternoons  playing  tennis,  because  he  felt  that  his 
mind,  which  he  could  not  keep  from  being  de- 
spondent, needed  the  backing  of  a  body  in  good 
condition.  In  his  pessimistic  mood,  he  looked 
with  a  sort  of  amused  contempt  at  the  way  the 
other  young  men  there  took  their  exercise — an 
hour  and  a  half  of  tennis  or  golf  to  store  up  physi- 


212  THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

cal  well-being  and  afterwards  several  highballs  to 
dissipate  it  again.  To  William,  health  and  vigor 
were  precious,  and  this  careless  handling  of  them 
sacrilegious. 

His  own  good  health  made  his  courage  good. 
Every  time  the  stock  went  up  five  points,  he  lost 
two  thousand  five  hundred  dollars.  Many  and 
many  a  day  he  had  seen  it  do  that,  and  was  still 
seeing  it  do  that.  But  his  tenacity  never  fal- 
tered— it  would  have  been  better  if  it  had.  He 
was  borne  up  by  the  conviction  that  some  day  the 
thing  must  come  to  an  end.  And  having  that 
conviction,  he  stood  by  it.  It  takes  courage  to 
follow  implicitly  one's  own  judgment.  - 

He  was  doing  almost  no  business  at  all.  The 
city,  save  for  those  in  government  service,  and  the 
merchants,  was  deserted.  There  were  few  per- 
sons who  needed  his  services.  He  had,  however, 
expected  this  state  of  affairs  and  had  on  that  ac- 
count accepted  an  invitation  to  visit  the  Barclays 
on  the  first  of  August.  But  a  few  days  before 
that  date  he  telegraphed  that  he  would  be  unable 
to  come. 

He  felt  that  he  would  have  lost  his  mind  had  he 
been  compelled  to  play  for  a  whole  week  the  game 
Sara  liked  to  play,  keeping  her  stimulated  and  di- 
verted, meeting  new  people  and  keeping  them 


THE  INNER  VOICE  213 

stimulated  and  diverted,  and  endeavoring  to  ap- 
pear stimulated  and  diverted  himself — a  mental 
feat  he  had  no  ambition  to  accomplish  and  was 
not  sure  that  he  could. 

The  day  he  sent  that  telegram  the  stock  had 
reached  four  hundred  and  fifty — a  phenomenal 
rise  at  which  all  those  who  took  an  interest  in  such 
things  stood  aghast  and  marvelled.  But  William 
was  loser  by  the  sum  of  eighty  thousand  dollars. 

A  small  incident  at  this  time  made  a  strange 
impression  upon  his  mind — strange  because  it  was 
the  impression  that  would  naturally  have  been 
made  upon  a  naked  South-Sea  islander — but  not 
upon  a  product  of  a  high  civilization.  But,  like 
plus  infinity  and  minus  infinity,  the  highest  state 
of  civilization  is  in  some  respects  synonymous 
with  savagery.  As  he  was  walking  along  a  wide 
avenue  near  the  streets  which  are  the  centers  of 
evening  festivity  for  poorer  people,  he  paused  for 
a  moment,  idly,  to  listen  to  the  hoarse  talk  of  a 
man  in  a  red-banded  hat,  around  whom  a  throng 
of  equally  idle  people  had  also  gathered  for  a  mo- 
ment— to  hear  his  uncouth  but  earnest  words. 

"My  friends,"  shouted  the  voice,  husky  from 
long  abuse  in  the  open  air,  "if  you  are  in  trouble, 
I  say  take  your  troubles  to  Jesus.  If  your  heart 
is  sore,  call  upon  Him.  Brother,  if  you  have  lost 


214          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

your  job;  or,  sister,  if  your  baby  is  lying  on  a  bed 
of  sickness,  tell  the  Man  in  Heaven  about  it. 
Don't  carry  that  weight  in  your  heart.  If  you 
feel  that  all  your  friends  are  against  you  and  the 
world  is  treating  you  hard,  Jesus  Christ  is  on  your 
side.  Take  the  hand  He  is  holding  out  to  you. 
Most  of  you  think  this  world  is  hard,  but  I  say  to 
you  that  the  world  is  easy,  if  you  will  trust  Jesus 
Christ,  the  Man  who  made  it." 

Wondering  that  people  should  listen  to  such 
platitudes,  such  repetition  of  well-worn  truths, 
yet  unexpectedly  keeping  the  homely  phrases  in 
his  mind,  he  walked  on  up  the  street.  "Emo- 
tional Christianity,"  he  thought,  "for  the  con- 
sumption of  the  half -educated— who  like  to  in- 
toxicate their  minds  with  temporary  thoughts  of 
heaven  and  the  golden  gates,  and,  sobering  up  ten 
minutes  later,  go  about  their  sordid  lives  as 
usual." 

But  one  thought  remained  in  his  storm-tossed 
and  wave-battered  mind.  Suppose  it  were  true 
that  when  man  had  come  to  the  end  of  his  own 
resources — when  his  own  feeble  strength  seemed 
as  but  the  hand  of  a  child  against  a  great  rock — 
suppose  then  he  could  call  in  the  aid  of  a  Higher 
Power  and  rest  his  trouble  upon  divine  shoulders. 
It  was  a  comforting  thought.  But  a  thought  for 


THE  INNER  VOICE  215 

weak  brothers !  For  men  who  had  failed  in  life ! 
But  for  William  'Spade,  no!  His  life  was  his 
own  problem.  He  would  not  admit  defeat  or  the 
weakness  of  his  own  arm.  Once  having  sunk 
spineless  upon  the  ground  and  calling  aloud  for 
help,  he  would  be  forever  impotent  and  useless. 
He  must  never  give  in. 

This  was  the  voice  of  his  training  and  culture — 
convincing  him  of  his  own  importance,  his  own 
power,  his  own  efficiency  and  his  own  ultimate 
omnipotence.  For  what  else  is  civilization*? 
Within  was  the  voice  of  the  savage,  awed  by  the 
immensity  of  the  powers  that  seemed  to  be  turned 
loose  against  him,  blindly  groping  for  a  helping 
hand  in  the  darkness.  He  spurned  the  inner  voice 
as  calling  upon  him  to  take  a  step  backwards. 
For  the  refining  influence  that  had  bred  in  him 
learning  and  confidence  in  his  own  power,  had  cast 
out  humility. 

The  God  whom  he  knew  was  a  historical  per- 
son. As  a  present  influence  he  ignored  His  power, 
His  precepts — His  very  existence. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

BOUND    BEACH 

At  his  brokers'  William  had  now  put  up  all  the 
collateral  he  had — a  hundred  and  five  thousand 
dollars'  worth  of  securities — and  continued  to 
hold  on.  He  considered  himself  fortunate  in  that 
he  had  enough  money  to  enable  him  to  do  so. 
Many  other  unfortunate  individuals  had  no  choice 
but  to  buy  themselves  out  of  the  trap  they  had 
lucklessly  entered.  He  was  now  convinced, 
rightly  or  wrongly,  that  he  was  going  to  lose  much 
less  than  eighty  thousand  dollars — if  he  held  on 
long  enough. 

When  the  stock,  reaching  four-fifty,  stood  there 
for  a  whole  week  as  if  it  had  come  to  the  end  of  its 
rise,  he  felt  as  if  he  had  been  given  a  precious 
gift.  For  the  first  time  the  tension  on  his  nerves 
relaxed.  At  first  he  was  exhilarated.  Then  a 
physical  slump  came  over  him.  He  awoke  one 
morning  with  a  fever.  And  his  doctor,  looking 
him  over,  told  him  to  leave  the  city  immediately. 

It  was  a  favorite  drug  with  doctors;  and  his 
216 


BOUND  BEACH 


217 


malady  was  a  favorite  malady — his  system  was 
run  down  and  required  a  week  or  two  for  recharg- 
ing with  strength  and  vigor.  An  easy  prescrip- 
tion— for  the  doctor.  But  what  of  the  stock  mar- 
ket, asked  William. 

"Has  your  presence  had  any  effect  on  it  in  the 
past  month,"  asked  the  physician,  briskly. 

"No." 

"Then  try  another  system.  Walk  around  your 
chair.  Change  your  luck.  Forget  about  the 
thing  for  a  week." 

An  omen,  a  voice  from  the  oracle!  William 
remained  dumb,  wondering. 

"Is  there  any  place  you  can  go  that  is  not 
reached  by  telegraph,  telephone  or  the  daily 
papers*?" 

"Not  that  I  know  of,"  William  responded, 
doubtfully.  "Yes,"  he  added,  "there  is  a  place." 

"Then  go." 

And  William  went.  He  could  not  help  think- 
ing how  strange  it  was  that,  in  this  ebb-tide  of  his 
fortunes,  he  had  refused  to  seek  the  presence  of  the 
woman  who  should  have  held  a  place  in  his  heart; 
and  had  ended  now  by  seeking  the  presence  of  a 
woman  who  held  no  place  in  his  heart.  For  the 
haven  he  sought  now  was  old  Mr.  Starkwether's 
hotel  at  Bound  Beach. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

HOLIDAY 

It  was  a  strangely  subdued  and  quiet  William 
Spade  that  Ruth  Dunbar  knew  at  Bound  Beach. 
Curiously  enough,  the  first  glimpse  she  had  of  him 
was  from  nearly  the  same  spot  as  the  first  sight, 
she  had  ever  had  of  him.  William,  landed  on 
the  beach  by  the  motor-boat  that  had  ferried  him 
across  the  inlet,  walked  up  the  sands  carrying  his 
bag — a  pleasant  sense  of  peace  and  quiet  filling 
his  heart  and  an  unaccustomed  congeniality  with 
the  world  flickering  within  as  he  watched  the 
waves  roll  in  and  listened  to  their  soothing  roar.. 

She  was  waiting  for  him  at  the  bend  of  the 
beach — quite  as  if  his  advent  was  not  an  astound- 
ing event  and  as  if  watching  him  walking  along 
she  had  not  twenty  times  decided  that  it  could  not 
possibly  be  he.  As  he  had  first  seen  her  fifteen 
years  before,  she  had,  Undine-like,  just  emerged 
from  the  sea  and  the  sheen  of  water  still  shone  on 
her  white  arms.  It  was  not  just  the  sort  of  bath- 
ing-suit she  had  worn  then,  but  she  was  graceful — 

218 


HOLIDAY  219 

more  graceful  than  the  slender  child  had  been. 

"I  was  wondering,"  she  said,  as  he  approached, 
"if  you  were  going  to  prove  to  be  real." 

He  set  down  his  bag  and  took  her  outstretched 
hand,  looking  at  her  with  frank  pleasure. 

"I  hope  I  am  real.  The  other  night  I  wasn't. 
I  had  a  fever  and  saw  those  crimson  things  Mr. 
Kipling  writes  about." 

Her  appraising  and  serious  eye  rested  upon 
him,  with  the  motherly  concern  that  her  long 
caring  for  the  minor  things  of  his  life  had  bred  in 
her. 

"You  look  indeed  as  if  you  had  been  ill,"  she 
said,  quietly. 

She  let  him  help  her  on  with  her  waterproof 
coat. 

"Why  had  you  a  fever1?"  she  demanded,  accus- 
ingly. 

He  did  not  intend  to  tell  her.  That  was  the 
main  part  of  his  plan.  It  was  partly  from  shame 
at  his  mistake,  but  mostly  from  pride.  He 
would  not  call  upon  her  sympathy  when  he  was 
down.  It  was  not  her  trouble,  and  she  was  enti- 
tled to  immunity  from  it.  The  troubles  of  others, 
he  thought,  are  never  of  interest  to  people. 

"It  was  hot  enough  in  Washington  to  give  any- 
one a  fever,"  he  replied,  therefore. 


220  THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

She  noted  the  evasion  in  his  answer.  Her  ex- 
amining eye  had  already  told  her  of  something 
amiss.  She  said  nothing,  but  her  mind  went  back 
to  a  time  when  she  had  decided  that  one  day  his 
luck  would  turn  against  him.  It  needed  no  ex- 
planation now  to  tell  her  that  the  day  had  come. 

She  had  known  before  that  when  the  day  did 
come,  she  would  be  filled  with  compassion  and 
concern.  The  mother  instinct  in  her  was  strong. 
Anxiety  to  offer  her  ministrations  to  him — 
wounded  on  the  field — was  her  first  impulse. 
But  she  did  not  offer  them — he  did  not  even 
suspect  that  she  wished  to  offer  them;  for  she 
knew  she  must  be  reserved  and  cautious.  He 
dwelt  upon  the  other  side  of  a  stream,  whose 
bridge  she  must  not  cross. 

She  understood  therefore  why  it  was  a  subdued 
and  quiet  William  Spade  that  spent  his  week  by 
the  seaside.  And,  because  there  was  a  certain 
elation  in  her  at  watching  what  she  conceived  to 
be  a  moulding  of  his  character,  and  because  of  the 
restrained  sympathy  she  had  for  him,  she  felt  that 
he  had  become  a  person  for  whom  she  had  more  of 
understanding.  It  was  an  anomalous  fact  that 
heretofore  she  had  insisted  on  keeping  up  the  bar- 
riers between  them  that  he  himself  had  con- 
structed, and  it  was  just  as  strange  now  that  she 


HOLIDAY  221 

should  be  interested  in  having  him  take  them 
down — if  but  temporarily. 

Either  she  was  finding  in  his  character  some- 
thing new  or  else  something  was  developing  there. 
She  had  not  expected  that  he  would  be  entertained 
by  the  simple  pleasures  .that  the  beach  afforded. 
She  had  not  expected  to  find  that  he  would  be  in- 
terested in  lying  on  the  beach  beside  her  and 
watching  the  sky  and  the  birds,  while  she  read  or 
sewed  or,  having  something  to  say,  talked  with 
him.  She  had  not  expected  that  he  would  follow 
the  usual  custom  there  of  going  to  bed  at  nine,  or 
that  he  would  be  up  at  six  in  the  morning  to  bathe 
in  the  ocean.  She  was  surprised  to  find  that,  on 
a  day  when  she  and  her  mother  had  gone  for  a 
trip  to  a  nearby  and  very  civilized  summer  resort, 
he  had  helped  old  man  Starkwether  put  a  coat  of 
paint  upon  the  keel  of  a  boat,  pleased  as  a  boy  at 
his  own  skill.  In  fact  that  was  what  he  seemed 
to  be — a  boy  willing  to  be  entertained  by  simple 
things. 

He  never  tired  of  Starkwether.  The  old  man 
brought  up  memories  of  his  childhood.  He 
laughed  at  his  blunt  way  of  insisting  upon  his 
own  rights,  covering  up  his  firmness  with  an  al- 
most suave  diplomacy.  When  Ruth  and  Wil- 
liam were  in  the  boat-shop  one  day,  a  man  came 


222          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

for  the  purpose  of  buying  some  paint  with  which 
to  cover  a  small  house  he  was  building.  There 
was  quite  a  colloquy  as  to  just  the  color  and  qual- 
ity of  the  paint,  the  customer  being  apparently 
hard  to  suit.  The  old  man  meanwhile  watched 
him  narrowly  from  under  his  bushy  brows,  specu- 
lating upon  something.  When  the  material  was 
ready,  the  customer  lifted  it  from  the  floor. 

"Mr.  Starkwether,"  he  said,  with  a  sunny 
smile,  "I'll  pay  you  for  this  some  time  when  I 
see  you." 

This  appeared  to  be  the  crucial  point.  "Ab- 
ner,"  said  the  boat-builder,  sternly,  "set  down  the 
can  of  paint."  Then,  with  the  utmost  urbanity 
and  interest,  "How  are  you  getting  on  with  your 
new  house*?" 

Obviously,  after  that,  there  was  no  way  of  get- 
ting the  conversation  back  again  to  the  subject  of 
the  paint  without  paying  for  it,  which  the  young 
man  did. 

William  found  such  things  diverting.  They 
kept  his  mind  from  turning  back  to  the  city.  In 
addition  to  this  he  had  resolved  not  to  think  of  the 
stock,  and  with  the  superstition  that  seems  to  go 
hand  in  hand  with  anything  that  resembles  gam- 
bling, he  did  not  think  of  it.  He  had  a  subcon- 
scious feeling  that  if  he  kept  his  mind  free  from 


HOLIDAY  223 

his  deal  for  a  while,  it  would  bring  him  good  luck. 
It  was  rather  an  unworthy  intent,  but  then  he  was 
not  engaged  in  a  very  uplifting  business  transac- 
tion. 

However,  the  weariness  of  his  constant  and 
nerve-racking  attention  to  the  stock  market  in  the 
past  few  months  made  absolute  freedom  from  it  a 
luxury  he  had  never  dreamed  could  be  so  restful. 
He  was  satisfied  to  do  nothing  at  all.  He  al- 
lowed Ruth  to  decide,  when  she  felt  so  inclined,  as 
to  the  disposition  of  his  day. 

He,  who  had  always  been  on  the  alert  for  some- 
thing to  quicken  his  blood,  found  himself  quite 
content  to  sit  under  the  shadow  of  a  wreck  partly 
buried  in  the  sand,  and  watch  her  make  mysterious 
stuff  which  she  spoke  of  as  "tatting."  He 
thought  that  after  she  once  found  she  could  do  it, 
she  would  have  been  satisfied.  But  she  kept  on. 
After  a  while  he  absorbed  the  idea  that  the  tatting 
was  used  for  something.  Or  he  would  listen  to 
her  read  aloud.  She  read  to  him  from  a  pirate 
story  they  had  found  at  the  hotel — a  tale  that 
supplied  him  with  vicarious  adventures  while  he 
lay  comfortably  on  the  sands. 

She  was  noted  at  Bound  Beach  for  her  skill  in 
handling  a  sailboat.  As  that  was  one  of  the 
things  about  which  he  knew  nothing,  he  was  al- 


224  THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

ways  glad  when  she  wanted  to  go  out  in  the  cat- 
boat  that  lay  at  anchor  at  the  inlet.  He  soon 
absorbed  a  working  knowledge  of  her  lore  and 
was  able  to  sit  at  the  tiller  and  put  the  little  boat 
through  its  paces  with  great  satisfaction  to  him- 
self. Sometimes  he  found  her  curious  glance 
upon  him. 

"Well,"  he  said,  on  one  occasion,  "am  I  such  a 
duffer  as  that?" 

"Why  do  you  ask?" 

"You  were  looking  at  me  in  such  a  strange 
way." 

"Don't  you  think  the  situation  is  strange.  In- 
stead of  being  in  a  hot  office,  me  your  handmaiden, 
at  your  beck  and  call,  we  are  down  here  on  a 
broad,  windy  ocean  where  I  don't  have  to  do  what 
you  say  unless  I  want  to." 

He  laughed  contentedly.  "I  would  move  the 
office  down  here  if  I  could,"  he  said. 

He  threw  over  the  tiller,  bringing  the  nose  of 
the  boat  up  into  the  wind.  The  girl  dodged  the 
boom  as  it  swung  over,  and  took  her  seat  on  the 
windward  side.  He  beamed  with  satisfaction 
with  himself  for  his  seamanship. 

"Would  you  consider,"  he  said,  suddenly,  "that 
you  were  my  handmaiden  at  my  beck  and  call  if  I 


HOLIDAY  225 

requested  you  to  wear  a  certain  white  dress  this 
evening — you  probably  know  the  one." 

She  flushed  with  pleasure.  She  had  not  sup- 
posed that  he  knew  one  dress  of  hers  from  another. 
"One  having  short  sleeves?"  she  asked. 

"Yes." 

"It  would  be  a  pleasure  for  me  to  serve  you  in 
that  particular.  Or,"  she  added,  with  a  serious 
air  of  politeness,  "in  any  other." 

"I  shall  remember  your  words." 

William  did  well  in  asking  her  to  wear  the 
white  dress.  It  left  her  round,  smooth  arms  bare, 
and  was  cut  just  low  enough  to  show  the  clear 
white  skin  of  her  neck  and  shoulders.  She  was  as 
fresh  as  a  newly  cut  flower  in  it.  It  gave  her  an 
air  of  comely  cleanliness  that  was  much  more  than 
skin-deep,  for  it  seemed  to  extend  inwards  to  her 
heart. 

After  dinner,  or  supper  as  they  termed  it  there, 
they  went  out  upon  the  beach.  It  was  low  tide 
and  a  wide  promenade  was  rolled  smooth  and  level 
for  them  to  walk  upon.  She  carried  a  silk  scarf 
over  her  arm  which  the  wind  blew  across  him. 
He  pinned  the  corner  of  it  idly  to  his  coat  with 
the  pin  that  was  the  insignia  of  his  college  fra- 
ternity ;  and,  when  presently  she  drew  it  round  her 


226          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

shoulders,  she  found  that  she  was  attached  firmly 
to  him. 

"What  do  you  wish  with  me?"  she  asked. 

Apparently  nothing,  for  he  released  her  imme- 
diately and  fastened  the  scarf  at  her  throat  with 
the  pin — a  sacrilege  that  in  his  college  days  would 
have  been  regarded  as  a  signal  for  dire  portents 
and  distress  throughout  the  union.  But  the  only 
thing  that  happened  now  was  that  she  said : 

"Is  that  your  fraternity  pin?" 

"Yes." 

"What  would  Miss  Barclay  say  at  seeing  it  in 
such  a  place?" 

She  had  meant  never  to  mention  that  name,  or 
even  indirectly  to  bring  herself  into  comparison 
with  this  other  girl.  But  she  felt  a  sense  of  near- 
ness and  friendliness  to  him  tonight,  which  made 
her  say  whatever  came  into  her  mind. 

"Sara  Barclay  is  a  far-away  person,"  he  replied. 

The  subject  had  a  fascination  for  her.  She 
had  a  poignant  curiosity  concerning  this  absent 
one,  whom  she  had  never  seen  and  whose  name 
until  this  moment  it  had  been  expedient  to  keep 
in  the  recesses  of  her  mind  rather  than  upon  her 
tongue. 

"Why  have  you  not  been  to  see  her?"  she  asked, 
mildly. 


HOLIDAY  227 

"She  is  so  complicated.     I  needed  rest." 

Yet  he  had  come  to  visit  her.  Non-combatant 
though  she  considered  herself,  she  could  not  re- 
strain the  flush  of  triumph  that  threw  a  sunset 
glow  upon  her  face. 

"Rest  lightly,  little  piece  of  gold,"  she  said  to 
the  pin  upon  her  breast.  "You  can  never  tell  to 
whom  your  master  will  lend  you  next." 

"It  is  in  order  that  it  may  have  a  better  opinion 
of  my  constancy,"  he  said,  without  wavering, 
"that  I  am  giving  it  to  you  now." 

She  bent  her  eyes  covertly  upon  him.  Gently, 
gently  she  felt  the  quicker  beating  of  her  heart 
under  the  pin  itself.  Farewell  now,  thin  assump- 
tion of  non-combatancy !  She  was  in  the  lists — 
her  badge  had  been  pinned  upon  her.  If  she 
wished  to  withdraw,  she  must  do  so  quickly.  But : 

"Thank  you  so  much,"  she  replied,  with  her  best 
smile. 

The  moon  shone  brightly  that  night  before  they 
left  the  shore.  At  half  past  nine,  that  midnight 
on  Bound  Beach,  had  any  one  of  the  population 
been  suffering  from  insomnia,  he  could  have  seen 
the  strange  sight  of  two  people  walking  slowly 
and  contentedly  homeward,  as  though  they  did  not 
know  night  had  come ;  when  all  honest  folk  should 
be  abed. 


228  THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

The  rest  of  William  Spade  this  night  is  the 
peaceful  and  dreamless  sleep  of  one  upon  whom 
the  gods  have  showered  favors.  Let  him  rest! 
Let  his  mind  be  calm  and  soothed  with  pleasant 
thoughts  while  it  may.  For  on  the  morrow  he 
returns  to  his  city  of  strife,  where  Fate,  nerveless 
and  heartless  and  free  from  any  fear  of  nausea  at 
her  own  deeds,  has  staged,  carefully  and  minutely, 
a  surprise  for  him. 

In  the  early  morning,  motor-boat  and  wagon 
and  train  bear  him,  reluctantly  homeward.  The 
scheming  Fate  puts  the  morning  paper  in  his  hand 
and  laughs  as  he  lets  it  lie  upon  his  knee,  unanx- 
ious  to  enter  the  cauldron  sooner  than  necessary. 
But  the  news  must  have  been  printed  in  hot  type, 
and  incandescent  letters  have  burned  their  way 
through  the  folded  sheet,  for,  unable  to  stand  sus- 
pense, he  tore  it  open  and  the  statement  hit  him 
as  a  blow  in  the  face. 

Everything  was  gone.  Consolidated  Steel  had 
risen  seventy-five  points  in  a  week.  All  his  hun- 
dred and  five  thousand  dollars — huge  sum  it 
seemed — was  wiped  out.  The  bloodless  face  and 
drawn  mouth  must  have  assured  the  schemer  of 
the  success  of  her  surprise. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

WILLIAM    TURNS    THE    SCREW 

Dazed  and  beaten,  William  took  his  bag  as  the 
train  stopped  at  a  station  and  descended  with  the 
normal  throng,  who  seemed  to  see  nothing  differ- 
ent in  the  aspect  of  the  world.  This  was  the  city 
of  his  birth — his  home.  Like  the  prodigal,  he  was 
going  to  his  father. 

The  thin-haired  and  bright-eyed  old  gentleman 
lived  over  again  his  own  misfortune  in  the  tale  of 
his  son.  His  mother  received  him  with  the  joy 
of  mothers.  The  mother  instinct  in  this  case  was 
so  keen  that  it  overlooked  rather  than  discovered 
the  trouble  in  his  heart.  The  years  had  mellowed 
his  father's  resentment.  In  the  autumn  of  his  life 
he  was  gathering  golden  ears,  which,  lying  upon 
the  floor  of  the  granary,  disguised  the  ever  bitter 
fact  that  it  should  have  been  full  to  the  eaves. 
But  this  much  his  philosophy  taught  him — that  no 
unhappiness  is  so  great  but  that  it  is  followed  ulti- 
mately by  a  healing  peace  of  mind.  With  a  child- 
like faith  in  the  scheme  of  the  world,  he  poured 

229 


230          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

balm  upon  the  wound.  William,  feeling  the 
philosophy  was  frail  for  use  in  the  rough-and 
tumble  world,  was  nevertheless  given  heart  by  the 
congenial  presence  of  the  older  man. 

That  night  he  boarded  a  train  with  a  surprising 
buoyancy  of  spirit — due  partly  to  the  trusting 
optimism  of  his  father,  who  urged  him  to  get  to 
the  scene  at  once,  suggesting  vaguely  that  perhaps 
something  might  be  done,  and  partly  to  the  latter's 
assurance  that,  though  he  had  failed  to  achieve 
riches  and  power,  he  would  find  himself  ulti- 
mately contented  in  poverty.  But  William 
Spade  was  not  to  be  content  in  poverty,  in  defeat. 
The  first  stunning  result  of  the  blow  had  worn  off, 
and  his  blood  was  beginning  to  circulate.  Sup- 
pose his  brokers  had  not  sold  him  out.  Every- 
thing hinged  on  that.  He  might  still  have  a 
fighting  chance. 

At  the  same  time  he  did  not  forget  that  he  still 
had  a  sheet  to  windward.  His  claim  against  the 
Old  Dominion  Steel  Company  was  not  as  straight- 
forward an  asset  as  he  could  have  wished  it  to  be, 
but  in  his  present  extremity,  it  was  the  straw  he 
might  be  compelled  to  grasp.  He  regretted  now 
that  he  had  run  away  from  the  scene  of  operations, 
on  his  doctor's  advice,  in  the  hope  that  the  pot, 
unwatched,  might  boil.  He  had  left  word  that 


WILLIAM  TURNS  THE  SCREW     231 

Warburton  was  to  transact  his  business  while  he 
was  gone,  but  what  could  Warburton  do  under 
the  circumstances.  However,  he  telegraphed  the 
lawyer  to  meet  him  at  the  station  in  Washington. 

"Man,"  cried  Warburton,  all  but  embracing 
him,  "you  are  like  one  from  the  dead.  If  I  had 
had  you — " 

"Have  they  sold  me  out*?"  demanded  William, 
not  hearing  what  he  said. 

"No,  no.     I  wouldn't  let  them." 

The  other  grasped  an  iron  pillar  for  support. 

"Louis,  you're  a  wonder.  I  feel  as  though 
someone  had  taken  a  locomotive  off  my  chest." 

Relief  was  the  only  emotion  he  felt.  He  lis- 
tened uncomprehending,  to  his  friend's  long  tale 
of  how  he  had  telegraphed  everywhere,  even  to 
Sara  Barclay,  trying  to  find  him. 

"But  how  did  you  stave  them  off4?"  he  de- 
manded, at  length. 

"I  wrote  to  the  directors  of  the  Old  Dominion 
Steel  Company  making  claim  upon  them  for  the 
advance  in  price  of  the  stock  you  formerly  held 
and  laid  the  case  before  your  brokers.  They  were 
satisfied  that  you  were  financially  strong  and  held 
on  for  you." 

"Very  good,  very  good,"  William  repeated. 
"That's  all  right.  They  put  the  screws  on  me. 


232          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

They  have  got  to  expect  the  same  treatment  in 
return.  I  warned  them  that  I  would  do  it." 

"That's  sensible  talk,"  said  Warburton. 

Had  he  still  been  in  the  holding  company,  his 
share  of  the  profit  on  the  increase  in  value  of  the 
stock  since  the  time  the  company  was  dissolved 
would  have  been  about  one  hundred  and  twenty 
thousand  dollars. 

"They  will  never  let  the  matter  come  into 
court,"  asserted  Warburton.  "It  would  knock 
the  bottom  out  of  their  stock.  They  know  they 
had  no  right  to  buy  you  out  and,  after  a  firm  ex- 
change of  letters,  they  will  give  in.  They  will 
offer  to  settle  out  of  court  for  say  half,  but  will 
give  us  two-thirds,  I  imagine,  if  we  stick  up  a  good 
rugged  bluff." 

The  opening  of  operations  against  the  Old  Do- 
minion Steel  Company  marked  a  very  definite 
point  in  William's  life.  Although  the  Old  Do- 
minion Company  had  forced  him  to  relinquish  his 
interest  in  their  stock,  he  had  the  facts  then  to 
prevent  them  from  accomplishing  their  purpose, 
but  had  withheld  them  in  order  to  get  his  adver- 
saries into  a  trap.  It  was  clear  to  him  that,  hav- 
ing allowed  himself  to  be  deprived  of  his  interest 
in  the  stock,  he  had  no  possible  moral  claim  to  its 
rise  in  value,  since  he  had  not  participated  in  the 


WILLIAM  TURNS  THE  SCREW    233 

risk.  But  the  doctrine  of  expediency  he  had  ab- 
sorbed from  the  money  hunters  who  surrounded 
him  pointed  to  the  great  staring  f  act— that  he  had 
a  strategic  claim.  A  lever  was  in  his  hand  that 
was  powerful  to  dislodge  the  cash  he  needed  and 
let  it  drop  into  his  lap. 

He  had  been  surrounded  by  men  who  had  had 
no  choice  but  to  make  money  wherever  they  could, 
Their  servants,  their  houses,  their  automobiles, 
their  free-handed  pleasures  had  required  a  steady 
stream  of  money,  and  they  had  taken  it  where  they 
found  it  to  throw  into  the  hopper.  William  had 
now  his  back  against  the  wall.  He,  too,  needed 
money  to  throw  into  the  hopper.  His  position,  his 
prestige,  his  self-respect  made  it  imperative  that 
he  should  have  money.  And  he  saw  nothing  but 
to  use  the  lever  that  was  in  his  hand. 

That  was  the  definite  step.  It  was  not  the  loss 
which  would  thereby  result  to  the  Old  Dominion 
Company  that  mattered.  The  company  was  rich 
and  unscrupulous  and  not  only  could  afford  but 
deserved  whatever  chastisement  they  would  re- 
ceive. But  this  was  the  first  breaking  down  of  his 
own  high  personal  standards — the  first  sign  of  the 
giving  way  of  his  resistance  to  the  influence  of  the 
spoiled  citizens  who  surrounded  him. 

Their  stagnant  moral  code  had  taken  hold  of 


234          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

him.  Their  state  of  being  answerable,  each  man 
only  to  himself,  had  numbed  his  spiritual  in- 
stincts. He  had  grown  to  consider  God  and  the 
hereafter  in  the  same  category  as  boundless  ether, 
the  heat  of  the  sun  and  the  courses  of  the  stars — 
stupendous  and  incomprehensible  but  of  no  press- 
ing personal  moment. 

Warburton's  letter  to  the  directors  had  begun 
by  calling  attention  to  the  letter  William  had 
written  at  the  time,  protesting  against  the  sale  of 
the  securities  held  by  the  holding  company,  and 
warning  the  two  other  directors — who  were  also 
directors  of  the  steel  company — that  he  considered 
himself  unfairly  and  fraudulently  dealt  with.  In 
view,  therefore,  of  the  rise  in  the  price  of  the  stock 
and  the  consequent  financial  loss  to  William 
Spade,  and  in  view  of  the  fact  that  the  purchase 
of  the  stock  upon  margin  by  the  steel  company,  the 
same  being  contrary  to  its  charter,  was  entirely 
illegal  and  beyond  its  power  to  act,  and  further,  in 
view  of  the  fact  that  the  purchase  was  forced  upon 
the  holding  company  by  the  vote  of  two  directors 
who  were  also  directors  of  the  steel  company:  the 
Old  Dominion  Company  was,  therefore,  called 
upon  to  make  restitution  to  the  holding  company, 
and  especially  to  William  Spade,  by  returning  the 
stock  thus  illegally  acquired. 


WILLIAM  TURNS  THE  SCREW     235 

The  reply  to  this  was  brief  and  evasive,  avoid- 
ing the  main  issues  and  indicating  an  intention  to 
take  no  further  action.  Warburton's  second  let- 
ter was  a  brief  repetition  of  his  first  with  a  con- 
cluding paragraph  to  the  effect  that  if  satisfactory 
answer  were  not  made  by  such  and  such  a  date, 
suit  would  be  brought.  This  was  William's 
strong  point,  as  a  suit  against  the  company  would 
result  in  a  drop  in  its  stock,  and  would  cause  great 
loss  to  the  individual  stockholders. 

This  letter  was  answered  by  a  call  from 
the  company's  attorney,  who  tried  to  convince 
them  that  their  attitude  was  unreasonable,  but 
who  at  length  spoke  somewhat  indefinitely  of  a 
compromise.  He  said,  however,  that  the  whole 
matter  would  have  to  be  taken  up  by  the  board  of 
directors.  His  attitude,  however,  was  decidedly 
conciliatory.  Warburton  found  out  later  that 
the  reason  for  this  was  that,  no  matter  what  the 
outcome  was,  the  directors  of  the  steel  company 
could  not  lose.  For,  before  the  stock  was  distrib- 
uted to  the  men,  the  possibility  of  trouble  on  ac- 
count of  the  clause  in  the  charter  had  been  dis- 
covered; and  the  stock  had  been  sold  to  the  em- 
ployees "subject  to  the  company's  legal  right  to 
purchase  and  redistribute  providing  that  the  em- 
ployees guarantee  the  company  against  any  loss 


236          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

incident  to  such  purchase  and  redistribution," 
which  appeared  a  most  innocent  and  reasonable 
provision  to  the  men,  who  did  not  know  how  the 
stock  had  been  acquired. 

The  lawyer  informed  William  of  this  state  of 
affairs,  but  William  did  not  feel  that  it  was  neces- 
sary for  him  to  alter  his  course  of  action  on  that 
account.  Warburton  said  he  saw  no  reason  why 
the  outcome  should  not  be  in  every  way  satisfac- 
tory. This  being  the  case  and  since  the  meeting 
of  the  board  of  directors  of  the  steel  company  was 
not  to  occur  until  two  weeks  later,  he  packed  his 
trunk,  told  William  he  was  going  away,  but  did 
not  say  where,  and  made  a  flying  trip  to  the  north 
to  see  Sara  Barclay. 


CHAPTER  XIX 

A    DIAMOND-SHAPED    PIN 

William,  actuated  by  many  motives,  wrote  to 
Ruth  Dunbar,  telling  her  to  extend  her  vacation 
and  stay  a  week  longer  at  Bound  Beach.  Had  he 
but  known  Richard  Roth  was  there  at  the  time 
and,  upon  hearing  of  the  extended  vacation,  ar- 
ranged to  extend  his  vacation  also  by  one  week  in 
order  to  stay  by  the  sea  waves,  William  might  not 
have  been  so  eagerly  altruistic.  But  since  he  did 
not  know  it,  he  was  happy  in  the  belief  that  she 
was  enjoying  herself. 

And  she  was  enjoying  herself.  It  would  be  in- 
accurate to  describe  Roth  as  an  engaging  person- 
ality, yet  certainly  he  was  entertaining  in  his  own 
rspcdal  :uul  particular  way.  His  mind  was  like  a 
city  whose  streets  all  run  at  right  angles  and  are 
the  same  distance  apart.  A  person  soon  got  to 
know  his  way  about — but  there  were  no  surprises. 
Ruth  felt  that  she  could  find  her  way  blindfolded 
about  Richard's  mind — the  plan  of  it  was  so  sim- 
ple and  straightforward. 

237 


238  THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

Nevertheless  the  city  of  his  brain  was  an  inter- 
esting place.  He  took  her  along  a  different  street 
of  it  every  day.  There  was  no  street  named 
Humor  Street,  which,  naturally,  would  run  diag- 
onally. Neither  was  there  a  street  named  Lie 
Street,  nor  Selfish  Street,  nor  Ostentation  Street, 
nor  Temper  Street.  There  was  a  Sensitive  Street 
which  took  the  place  of  Temper  Street;  and  there 
was  an  Ego  Street,  an  important  thoroughfare, 
from  which  all  streets  both  ways  were  reckoned. 

This  was  a  conceit  of  her  own,  which,  however, 
was  of  interest  to  him  when  he  understood  the 
idea.  He  actually  set  about  making  a  plan  of  the 
mind  city  and  naming  the  streets — with  her  help. 
This  was  the  nearest  he  had  ever  approached  to  an 
appreciation  of  humor,  and  he  appreciated  that 
only  because  he  looked  upon  it  as  a  diagrammatic 
representation  of  an  intangible  thing. 

His  mind  being  thus  carefully  arranged,  it  was 
not  a  difficult  matter  for  him  to  think  aloud,  and 
he  gave  her  his  impressions  of  the  day  as  the  day 
progressed.  If  he  found  a  shell  upon  the  beach, 
he  would  find  a  multiplicity  of  ideas  in  it.  He 
could  give  a  Latin  name  to  it  and,  like  a  phrenolo- 
gist, tell  her  interesting  characteristics  and  pecul- 
iarities of  the  former  tenant.  He  would  take  her 
on  detective  expeditions  to  spy  upon  the  habits  of 


A  DIAMOND-SHAPED  PIN         239 

the  little  sand  snipe  that  fed  upon  small  animal 
life  at  the  edge  of  the  surf.  Or  he  would  pick 
up  a  bottle  on  the  sand  and  say  that  it  had  con- 
tained such  and  such  a  substance  and  that  it  was 
used  upon  steamers  bound  from  certain  ports  to 
certain  ports,  giving  a  careful  dissertation  on  the 
reason  why — all  as  though  his  words  were  being 
taken  down  verbatim  to  appear  later  as  a  mono- 
graph upon  the  subject. 

As  a  friendship  it  was  not  unlike  an  intimate 
personal  acquaintance  with  the  Encyclopdia  Brit- 
annica.  But  with  this  difference.  The  Britan- 
nica  book  has  no  such  thing  about  it  as  contagious 
enthusiasm.  The  facts  that  Roth  knew  were  of 
infinite  value  and  interest  to  him.  His  sympathy 
with  the  birds  and  the  flowers  and  the  little  in- 
sects that  lived  in  the  sand  was  profound.  To 
have  been  bored  with  him  on  that  account  would 
have  been  to  show  almost  a  sacrilegious  contempt 
for  the  work  of  God. 

He  would  hurry  from  his  breakfast  on  Thurs- 
day mornings  to  watch  the  upset  drill  of  the  coast 
guard  men,  and  would  talk  interminably  with 
them  about  their  self-bailing  boats,  embarrassing 
them  greatly  by  suggesting  improvements  that 
theoretically  were  better.  And  they,  knowing  lit- 
tle about  theory,  were  quite  unable  to  discuss  the 


240  THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

matter  with  him  or  to  understand  his  point  of 
view.  Ruth,  meanwhile,  much  amused,  would 
stand  around,  waiting  until  he  deigned  to  take  her 
away. 

This  was  from  no  discourtesy  upon  his  part. 
He  simply  thought  she  was  as  much  interested  as 
was  he.  That  was  a  part  of  his  straightforward 
nature — one  could  not  blame  him  for  it.  It  was 
the  mainstay  of  his  character  in  other  ways.  It 
was  the  thing,  for  instance,  that  would  have  made 
him  a  possible  choice,  did  all  this  friendly  ex- 
change of  information  serve  in  his  case  for  love- 
making. 

And  her  understanding  mind  had  long  since 
made  certain  that  it  did  serve  for  love-making. 
The  importance  he  gave  to  all  her  minor  whims 
and  preferences,  the  unknowing  way  he  adopted  for 
his  own  her  tricks  of  phraseology,  the  restlessness 
that  came  over  him  did  she  enter  the  room  where 
he  was  talking  to  someone  else  and  the  uncon- 
sciousness with  which  he  shaped  his  life  to  fit  in 
with  hers,  made  her  more  sure  of  his  intentions 
than  she  could  have  been  of  another  man's  had  he 
told  her  in  so  many  words. 

Could  a  woman's  romantic  soul  be  satisfied  with 
such  a  manifestation  of  love?  Two  years  ago  she 
had  asked  herself  that  question,  thinking  that  she 


A  DIAMOND-SHAPED  PIN         241 

required  ardor  and  impetuosity.  But  long  famil- 
iarity with  the  lack  of  it  had  moulded  her  spirit 
into  considering  the  inward  and  spiritual  grace 
and  dispensing  with  the  outward  and  visible  sign. 
Long  deliberation  had  convinced  her  that  it  was 
not  cavalier  grace  and  adoration  that  was  neces- 
sary for  happiness  in  the  years  to  come,  but 
staunchness  of  purpose  and  stoutness  of  heart. 
Her  life  was  to  be  a  long  life;  and  a  man  with  a 
conscience  and  a  will  to  do  right  first  of  all,  how- 
ever unornamental  and  prosaic  such  a  combina- 
tion might  be,  would  be  a  bulwark  and  a  source  of 
contentment  to  her  as  long  as  she  lived. 

It  is  difficult  for  a  girl,  having  always  before 
her  the  problem  of  marrying  herself  to  the  best 
and  most  satisfactory  man,  to  decide  whether  love 
consists  of  acquiescence  or  of  desire — whether 
marriage  is  a  responsibility  for  the  remaining  half 
of  one's  life  and  for  future  generations,  or  whether 
it  is  simply  the  duty  of  following  the  flame  in  one's 
heart.  If  it  were  acquiescence  and  careful  plan- 
ning for  the  future,  Richard  Roth  fulfilled  her 
specifications.  But  as  to  whether  her  heart  would 
acquiesce  to  this  ruling,  she  did  not  promise  her- 
self. In  fact  she  always  considered  the  day  on 
which  she  must  decide  as  far  away.  When  it 
therefore  came,  she  found  herself  not  at  all  ready. 


242          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

Naturally  the  soul  of  the  man  chose  eight 
o'clock  in  the  morning  as  the  time  to  discuss  this 
matter.  A  leaden  sky  hung  over  a  leaden  sea. 
All  the  world  was  a  gray  monotone — and  a  dis- 
mal east  wind  heavy  with  rain  blew  across  the 
sands. 

"Ruth,"  said  he,  "I  will  be  twenty-six  years 
old  in  October.  The  board  of  trustees  have  made 
me,  as  you  know,  a  full  professor  with  a  salary  of 
three  thousand  dollars  a  year.  The  time  has  come 
for  me  to  consider  my  future  life.  My  prospects 
entitle  me  to  make  a  proposal  of  marriage  to  a 
girl,  knowing  that  I  can  fulfill  my  obligations  in 
the  matter.  In  addition  to  this,  neither  of  us  can 
be  blind  to  the  fact  that  the  time  has  come  for 
you  to  consider  your  future  life.  You  cannot  go 
on  and  on  being  a  mere  employee  in  an  office. 
Greater  things  are  required  of  you.  Your  happi- 
ness requires  that  you  have  a  home  of  your  own." 

He  paused  and,  earnest  but  unpicturesque, 
leaned  intently  forward,  his  elbows  on  his  knees 
and  his  hands  tightly  clasped,  as  was  his  custom 
when  greatly  concerned. 

"Here  are  two  lives,  whose  future  is  as  yet  un- 
provided for.  Let  us  join  them  together.  I  will 
do  everything  in  the  world  to  make  you  happy. 


A  DIAMOND-SHAPED  PIN         243 

You  will  make  my  life  a  paradise,  of  which  I  am 
unable  to  give  adequate  expression." 

He  stopped  then,  having  said  everything. 
And  with  his  silence  came  the  realization  that  she 
must  reply.  But  how  could  she  reply1?  Until 
that  moment  she  had  thought  that  her  mind  was 
open  upon  that  question.  But  as  she  looked  at 
him,  in  spite  of  the  kindliness  in  her  heart  toward 
him,  she  felt  the  conviction  rising  stronger  and 
stronger  within  her  that,  straightforward  and  true 
though  he  was,  she  did  not  want  him  for  a  hus- 
band. 

"I  cannot  say  'Yes'  to  that,"  she  answered. 

"Is  there  anyone  else?"  he  demanded,  with  a 
certain  wistfulness. 

Was  there  anyone  else!  Her  unexpected  cer- 
tainty that  she  did  not  want  this  man  gave  her 
cause  for  reflection. 

Did  it  mean  a  miraculous  presentment  of  the 
coming  of  another  man,  more  congenial  than  he? 
Did  it  mean  simply  a  sudden  realization  that  her 
soul  and  his  did  not  fit?  Or  did  it  mean  that  she 
had  already  made  a  comparison  that  eliminated 
him  ?  Not  many  men  dotted  her  horizon,  but  she 
would  have  been  forced  to  admit  that  the  only 
place  to  which  her  mind  turned  was  to  the  dia- 


244          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

mond-shaped  pin  that  lay  in  a  tiny  box  in  her 
trunk.  A  treasure  that,  but  it  meant  nothing  but 
a  memory  of  a  pleasant  moment — having  nothing 
to  do  with  the  serious  things  of  life.  It  was  a 
symbol  of  the  past  and  not  of  the  future. 

"There  is  no  other  man,"  she  replied,  thought- 
fully. 


CHAPTER  XX 

THE    DISTURBING    PERSON 

The  following  Monday  morning  she  sat  again 
at  her  desk,  experiencing  a  blended  feeling  of  re- 
gret and  pleasure  at  her  return.  When  her  em- 
ployer entered  the  door,  a  trifle  ahead  of  his  usual 
time,  she  rose  immediately  to  meet  him  as  if  she 
were  receiving  a  guest  in  her  own  house.  The 
firm  clasp  of  his  hand  and  his  boyish  laugh  were 
pleasant  welcome.  She  flushed  under  his  gaze. 

"It  has  been  a  long  while,"  he  exclaimed,  "since 
I  have  seen  you,  but  I  should  have  known  you 
anywhere." 

"It  has  been  only  a  week,"  she  reminded  him. 

"Then  never  tell  me  a  week  isn't  a  long  time. 
You  cannot  picture  what  a  dismal  office  this  has 
been.  Even  the  book  agents  refused  to  stay." 

He  entered  his  inner  office  and  found  his  mail 
arranged  upon  his  desk  as  she  had  always  arranged 
it.  He  called  through  the  open  door  to  express 
his  satisfaction  at  seeing  his  desk  in  order  again. 
Every  time  she  turned  to  the  filing  case,  she  could 

245 


246  THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

see  him  leaning  back  in  His  chair,  reading  his 
letters  and  drumming  idly  upon  the  arm  of  his 
chair.  When  he  called  her  in  he  seated  her  as 
usual  in  his  own  chair  and  walking  up  and  down, 
dictated  rapidly,  apparently  unconscious  of  her 
presence — except  when  he  would  say  "Is  contin- 
gency the  word  I  want?"  and  she  would  reply 
"No."  "Very  good,  use  the  right  word."  And  on 
would  go  the  dictation.  It  was  all  familiar  and 
homelike,  as  if  she  had  been  away  but  a  day. 

That  much  of  her  return  was  pleasant.  The 
rest  was  not.  The  street  outside  was  hot — 'with 
no  ocean  breeze  to  move  the  humid  air.  The 
asphalt  paving  was  unpleasantly  like  the  sandy 
beach  in  that  she  could  feel  her  shoes  sinking  into 
it  as  she  walked.  The  lunch  room  was  full  of 
uncomfortable  people,  getting  some  small  relief 
from  sitting  under  the  electric  fans.  Ruth  was 
looking  doubtfully  around  in  the  hope  of  finding 
a  table  for  herself,  when  she  was  suddenly  con- 
fronted by  Roth's  homely,  smiling  face. 

"Just  in  time,"  he  exclaimed,  reaching  down 
and  grasping  her  hand.  "My  sister  is  over  here. 
We  have  been  talking  about  you  and  wondering 
if  you  were  coming." 

"It  was  like  crossing  the  Sahara." 

She  followed  him  to  the  table  where  his  sister 


THE  DISTURBING  PERSON      247 

was,  and  seated  herself  in  the  chair  he  pulled  out 
for  her. 

"My  dear  Alice,"  she  said,  "why  do  you  ven- 
ture out  in  such  heat." 

"Shopping.  Besides,  I  had  to  superintend  the 
purchase  of  a  suit  of  clothes  for  Richard.  That 
is  my  duty — since  he  will  not  get  a  wife."  She 
glanced  quickly  at  the  girl  opposite,  as  if  to  catch 
her  expression. 

"Richard,"  exclaimed  Ruth,  reprovingly,  "you 
are  old  enough  to  buy  your  own  clothes." 

"Is  that  the  verdict?  In  the  future,  then,  I 
shall  do  so." 

Ruth  turned  to  Mrs.  Bullard.  "How  is  the 
house  coming  on*?" 

"It  is  not  coming  on,"  replied  the  other  quietly. 

Richard  broke  in. 

"What  do  you  think,"  he  exclaimed,  "of  a  re- 
putable company  that  would  sell  stock  to  its  em- 
ployees under  the  assumption  that  they  were  to 
participate  in  any  increase  in  value,  and  then 
when  the  stock  had  gone  up  seventy-five  dollars  a 
share,  announce  that  the  company  could  not  de- 
liver it,  but  that  simply  the  purchase  money  would 
be  returned*?" 

"But  I  don't  understand.  Wasn't  there  an 
agreement?" 


248          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

"The  agreement  had  a  loophole  in  it.  It  now 
develops  that  the  company  had  no  right  to  pur- 
chase and  redistribute  the  stock  without  the  con- 
sent of  a  certain  third  party.  Is  that  the  idea, 
Alice4?" 

"I  think  so.  It  is  a  little  vague  to  us  all.  But 
there  is  a  man  who  has  a  technical  claim.  It 
seems  that  instead  of  presenting  it  at  the  time  and 
having  everything  adjusted,  he  played  a  trick  on 
the  company.  He  waited  until  the  stock  went  up, 
and  then  brought  his  claim  for  all  the  increase." 
Mrs.  Bullard's  lip  quivered,  and  she  laughed  to 
cover  a  desire  to  cry.  "That  means  all  the  money 
we  thought  we  had  made  is  gone." 

"But  he  can't  get  it,  can  he1?"  Ruth  demanded, 
indignantly. 

The  other  nodded.  "The  employees  hired  a 
lawyer  who  said  the  man's  claim  is  good." 

"And  all  your  work  and  struggle  was  for  noth- 
ing?" 

"Almost.  We  may  possibly  get  a  third  of  the 
increase." 

"But  the  house?" 

"No  house,"  said  Mrs.  Bullard,  smiling  bravely. 

The  color  rose  to  Ruth's  cheeks,  and  anger 
shone  in  her  eyes.  "To  think,"  she  exclaimed, 
"that  such  a  man  should  be  allowed  to  live.  In 


THE  DISTURBING  PERSON      249 

order  to  amass  a  large  sum  of  money  for  himself 
he  squeezes  it  penny  by  penny  from  poor  people — 
who  had  earned  it  by  struggle  and  privation  he 
never  dreamed  of." 

Roth  glanced  at  her  with  admiration.  "Ex- 
actly !"  he  exclaimed,  fervently. 

"Thank  you,  Ruth,  my  dear,"  said  the  other 
woman.  "If  your  words  could  only  change  the 
situation !" 

Ruth  was  so  full  of  sympathy  for  the  misfor- 
tune that  had  befallen  her  friends  that  she  went 
back  to  her  office  determined  to  tell  William 
Spade  about  it  and  ask  him  if  there  were  not 
something  he  could  suggest  that  could  be  done  to 
help  them  out  of  their  difficulty.  It  surprised  her 
to  think  that  he  should  be  the  man  to  whom  she 
voluntarily  turned  for  help.  But,  she  reflected 
with  a  feeling  of  pride,  he  was  a  man  of  many  re- 
sources and  many  friends.  In  spite  of  the  patron- 
izing way  she  sometimes  looked  upon  his  youthful 
self-confidence  and  his  faith  in  his  good  fortune, 
she  knew  from  working  with  him  day  by  day  that 
he  was  a  person  of  unusual  capability  and  that  his 
business  associates  considered  him  so.  And  it  was 
a  pleasure  for  her  to  believe  this. 

He  did  not  come  into  the  office,  however,  until 
late  in  the  afternoon,  and  then  so  engrossed  in  an 


250          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

application  from  someone  for  a  large  loan  that  it 
would  have  been  impossible  for  her  to  distract 
his  attention  from  it.  He  asked  her  if  she  would 
mind  staying  a  little  later,  as  it  was  important 
that  several  long  letters  be  written  that  night. 
The  work  of  looking  up  the  information  he  re- 
quired, however,  took  longer  than  he  had  antici- 
pated, and  it  was  nearly  seven  o'clock  when  the 
letters  were  finally  written. 

"I  get  so  absorbed,"  he  exclaimed,  contritely. 
"I  had  no  right  to  keep  you  here  so  late." 

She  assured  him  that  she  did  not  mind.  He 
read  through  the  letters,  and  signed  them. 

"You  will  be  too  late  for  your  dinner  at  home," 
he  said.  "Would  you  consider  dining  down  town 
with  me?" 

"Not  very  long,"  she  replied,  smiling. 

He  looked  at  her  intently.  "Don't  keep  me  in 
suspense.  Does  that  mean  yes  or  no1?" 

"I'm  very  hungry." 

He  lifted  his  hat  from  its  peg.  "That  is 
enough.  I  can't  see  anyone  starve.  Let's 
hurry." 

She  got  her  own  hat  and  stood  before  the 
mirror. 

"But,  Mr.  Spade,  I—" 

"Do  you  always  call  me  that*?"  he  demanded. 


THE  DISTURBING  PERSON      251 

"At  the  seashore  I  did  not  call  you  anything," 
she  confessed. 

"My  name,  you  know,  is  William.  Diminu- 
tive for  use  of  all  Dunbars — 'Billy.'  " 

She  eyed  her  hat  critically  in  the  glass  and 
pushed  a  pin  carefully  into  its  place. 

"All  right,  Billy,"  she  said,  suddenly,  with  a 
dazzling  smile.  "I  say  hurry." 

It  had  been  fifteen  years  since  she  had  called 
him  by  his  Christian  name.  The  lightness  with 
which  she  did  it  belied  the  interest  she  felt  in  the 
act.  In  its  newness  it  had  the  breath-taking  for- 
wardness of  a  term  of  endearment — and  she  suf- 
fered a  corresponding  embarrassment. 

"Aren't  you  going  to  be  ashamed,"  she  asked, 
as  they  waited  at  the  elevator,  "to  take  me  to 
dinner  in  a  shirtwaist  and  skirt1?" 

"No,  indeed,"  he  replied,  earnestly,  "if  you 
made  yourself  any  better  looking  than  you  are 
right  now  someone  would  take  you  away  from 
me." 

She  met  his  smiling  eyes  and  found  in  them  the 
disturbing  evidence  of  pride  in  her.  That  he 
should  be  satisfied  with  her  and  openly  show  his 
admiration  for  her  were  things  she  ought  naturally 
to  have  taken  as  a  matter  of  course.  To  inspire 
this  state  of  mind  was  what  her  good  looks  were 


252  THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

for.  But  instead  of  complacent  contentment,  she 
felt  a  hot  glow  of  pleasure.  She  turned  from  him 
to  adjust  a  perfectly  setting  hat  by  her  reflection 
in  the  glass  of  the  door,  humming  softly  to  herself. 
Then  she  glanced  at  him  quickly  to  see  if  he  were 
still  looking  at  her  and,  true  daughter  of  Eve,  ex- 
perienced a  disproportionate  serenity  from  finding 
that  he  was. 

As  for  her  companion,  he  was  not  serene.  As 
he  looked  at  her  standing  there  beside  him  making 
mysterious  yet  strangely  graceful  adjustments  to 
her  toque  or  bonnet,  or  turban  or  csaco,  or  what- 
ever it  was,  he  found  his  tranquillity  greatly  dis- 
turbed. Her  sudden  falling  into  a  mood  of  co- 
quetry after  a  day  of  seriousness  and  application 
was  more  than  a  pleasure  to  him.  It  seemed  to 
touch  a  hidden  spring  in  his  mind  and  to  guide  on, 
in  a  direction  that  promised  to  be  alluringly  more 
pleasant. 

And  yet  he  was  disturbed.  Tentatively  and  in- 
directly, but  with  no  chance  for  mistake  as  to  his 
meaning,  he  had  on  several  occasions  offered  him- 
self to  another  woman,  who  now  felt  herself  enti- 
tled to  take  him  whenever  the  spirit  moved  her. 
The  feline  element  in  this  woman  had  caused  her 
to  spend  long  hours  of  patient  watching  and  tire- 
less maneuvering  to  secure  the  admiration  from 


THE  DISTURBING  PERSON       253 

him  that  to  her  was  equivalent  to  love  and,  having 
at  last  secured  it,  she  held  it  between  her  velvet 
paws,  unwilling  to  destroy  the  pleasure  of  the 
game  by  seizing  it.  And  he,  having  expended 
much  mental  effort  in  making  himself  appear 
worth  catching,  had  long  ago  decided  that  he  had 
but  to  wait  the  crucial  moment  and  the  velvet 
paws  would  drag  him  into  riches  and  power. 

And  meanwhile  he  was  permitting  himself  to 
be  dazzled  by  this  girl  who  alluringly  adjusted  her 
rose-decked  toque  on  her  red-brown  hair.  A 
man's  life  was  a  complicated  thing.  It  was  like 
an  artist  sketching  a  sunset.  When  his  colors 
were  mixed  and  his  plan  laid,  the  scene  changed 
and  those  colors  and  that  plan  were  useless.  So 
a  man  strives  and  strives  for  something  until  it  is 
within  his  grasp  and  then  finds  that  thing  no 
longer  fits  his  desires. 

William  had  laid  his  plan  and  striven  and  made 
his  offer.  Then  the  intervention  of  this  disturb- 
ing person.  Polygamous  impulse  it  was  for  him 
to  be  conscious  of  the  shade  of  that  hair  or  botan- 
ically  to  classify  the  flowers  on  that  hat !  He  had 
restricted  himself  to  the  consideration  of  other 
tresses  and  other  roses.  As  that  fact  was  im- 
pressed on  him,  he  became  conscious  that  he  did  not 
love  the  woman  to  whom  he  had  offered  himself. 


254          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

A  bitter  thought  it  was.  And  yet  his  sense  of 
honor — his  gentleman's  sense  of  honor  that  had 
permitted  him  to  seek  the  girl  for  the  power  that 
lay  in  her  hands — made  him  aware  that  his  offer 
bound  him  to  her  until  he  was  released.  Until 
the  return  of  his  stenographer  that  day  from  her 
seemingly  long  absence  and  his  realization  of  the 
difference  her  presence  made  to  him,  he  had  not 
been  aware  that  this  problem  would  arise  in  his 
life.  Yet  here  was  the  problem  and  also  the  solu- 
tion his  sense  of  decency  provided  for  him. 

As  they  sat  at  the  table  later — a  table  showy 
with  linen  and  silver  and  cut  flowers — he  consid- 
ered her  thoughtfully,  wondering  what  his  course 
of  action  toward  her  should  be.  It  would  be  un- 
pleasant and  rude  and  unfair  to  her  to  eliminate 
his  recently  born  friendship  for  her  and  return  to 
his  former  formal  business  relations.  It  would  be 
unfair  to  himself  to  permit  the  friendliness  to 
continue. 

"It  isn't  complimentary  for  you  to  think  busi- 
ness when  you  are  dining  with  me,"  she  said. 

"What  I  was  thinking  was  more  than  compli- 
mentary to  you." 

"  'More  than'  ?"  she  repeated,  derisively. 
"Didn't  you  mean  to  say  'complimentary  is  not 
the  word'?" 


THE  DISTURBING  PERSON      255 

"Perhaps  I  did,"  he  replied,  seriously.  "I 
could  substitute  a  better  word.  I  was  thinking  of 
a  multitude  of  things  that  concerned  you.  If  I 
were  to  tell  you  it  might  spoil  all  that  becoming 
sense  of  humility  that  sits  upon  you  like  a  gar- 
ment." 

She  smiled  at  his  figure  of  speech,  but  curiosity 
started  an  agency  in  her  mind  skimming  over  vari- 
ous possible  thoughts  that  might  have  been  in  his 
head  and  wondering  which  of  them  it  was.  She 
was  burning  to  ask  more  about  it,  but  the  serious- 
ness of  his  speech  warned  her  that  some  complica- 
tion, in  which  she  was  vaguely  concerned,  was  oc- 
cupying his  attention  and  that  it  would  be  show- 
ing undue  eagerness  to  ask.  But  the  Paul  Pry  in 
her  was  deliciously  piqued. 

Thus  so  many  things  of  an  intimately  personal 
nature  occupied  her  attention  that,  although  an 
unusual  opportunity  had  offered  itself,  it  did  not 
occur  to  her  to  ask  his  advice  upon  the  subject  that 
had  so  engrossed  her  earlier  in  the  day.  Mrs. 
Bui  lard  and  the  Old  Dominion  Steel  Company 
did  not  cross  her  mind  until  long  after  he  had  left 
her.  And  even  then  the  memory  of  many  things, 
apparently  more  intimately  concerned  with  Wil- 
liam Spade,  dimmed  the  importance  of  that  topic. 


CHAPTER  XXI 

"l    AM    THE    MAN" 

In  the  part  of  the  evening  that  followed  his 
leaving  Ruth,  the  mind  of  William  Spade  was 
busy.  He  realized  that  the  girl  had  made  a  place 
for  herself  in  his  mind  from  which  it  would  be 
difficult  to  dismiss  her.  But  a  change  in  his  atti- 
tude had  to  be  made — and  had  to  be  made  imme- 
diately. 

The  situation  pointed  to  but  one  thing.  He 
must  make  Sara  Barclay  decide  what  was  her  at- 
titude toward  him.  It  was  an  unpleasant  task. 
His  ambition  to  step  into  power  by  way  of  mar- 
riage had  dimmed  somewhat  by  now — since  he 
had  found  there  was  more  than  one  woman  in  the 
world.  It  is  a  pleasant  thought  to  marry  a  beau- 
tiful girl  and  know  that  wealth  and  position  and 
power  go  with  her  as  a  perquisite.  But  it  is  no 
pleasant  thought  to  marry  the  wealth  and  position 
and  know  that  in  doing  so  you  must  take  the  girl, 

whether  you  want  to  or  not.     And  this  the  more 

256 


"I  AM  THE  MAN"  257 

so,  as  William  had  begun  to  feel,  despite  his  Con- 
solidated fiasco — which  he  regarded  as  a  mere  mis- 
fortune— that  he  would  be  able  to  get  the  wealth 
and  position  he  needed  in  a  way  that  was  much 
better  than  marrying  it. 

However,  his  sense  of  honor  and  decency — -the 
puny  virtues  of  the  mind  prized  by  the  people 
with  whom  he  was  thrown — pointed  the  way. 
He  was  willing  to  make  the  sacrifice  since  he  felt 
that  was  the  way  a  gentleman  would  of  necessity 
comport  himself.  Therefore,  he  called  up  Sara 
Barclay  on  the  long  distance  telephone,  and,  mak- 
ing a  pretence  of  business  in  Boston,  announced 
that  on  the  following  afternoon  he  would,  if  con- 
venient, make  a  fleeting  call  upon  her — between 
trains,  as  it  were.  This  was  satisfactory  to  her. 
William  had  the  additional  pleasure  of  conversing 
for  a  few  moments  with  Warburton,  who  was  then 
visiting  Sara. 

He  wrote  a  note  to  Ruth  at  his  office  saying  he 
would  be  back  in  a  few  days,  and  took  the  mid- 
night train.  It  was  an  unexpected  setting  that 
was  provided  for  his  interview  with  Sara.  He 
was  met  at  the  station  by  a  big  automobile  in  the 
rear  seat  of  which  sat  Sara,  very  lovely  and  com- 
posed, her  hands  folded  in  her  lap  and  a  sweet 
smile  upon  her  lips.  Warburton,  who  had  been 


258          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

sitting  beside  her,  got  out  as  soon  as  he  saw  Wil- 
liam and  came  to  meet  him. 

This  was  the  party  that  drove  home,  Sara  in  the 
middle  of  the  seat,  as  pretty  and  contented  as  a 
picture  on  a  valentine,  and  a  man  upon  either  side 
of  her.  William  noticed  an  unusual  excitement 
in  the  other  man's  manner  which  he  hardly  attrib- 
uted to  the  simple  pleasure  of  his  arrival  on  the 
scene.  He  himself,  who  had  come  upon  the  busi- 
ness that  would  affect  his  whole  future  life,  was 
as  calm  as  was  Sara.  And,  strangely  enough,  the 
business  was  broached  and  settled  upon  that  very 
drive. 

"We  have  a  piece  of  great  news  for  you,  Billy," 
Sara  said,  at  the  end  of  a  convenient  pause.  Wil- 
liam was  quick  to  catch  in  her  tone  a  hint  that  this 
was  something  she  had  prepared  to  say  at  this 
time.  She  was  looking  unconcernedly  ahead  of 
her,  but  when  she  felt  his  eyes  upon  her,  she 
turned  and  smiled  brightly.  He  decided  that  it 
was  something  that  would  concern  him  and  put  on 
what  might  have  been  called  a  poker  face. 

"Let's  have  it  quickly,"  he  said,  pleasantly. 

She  gave  it  to  him  quickly — as  though  she  had 
rolled  it  up  into  as  few  words  as  possible  and 
thrown  it  at  him  suddenly,  for  the  purpose  of 


"I  AM  THE  MAN"  259 

noting  what  his  emotions  would  be  upon  hear- 
ing it. 

"I  am  going  to  marry  Louis,"  she  observed, 
touching  Warburton  lightly  on  the  sleeve.  Her 
words  had  in  them  a  studied  lack  of  expression, 
but  her  eyes  were  full  upon  him.  But  if  she  were 
looking,  or  hoping,  for  a  sign  of  regret,  she  saw 
none. 

"Bless  you  both,  my  children,"  he  exclaimed. 
"And  I  shall  be  the  first  to  kiss  the  bride." 

Whereupon,  to  her  intense  surprise,  he  leaned 
forward  and  kissed  her  full  upon  the  mouth.  For 
once  in  her  life  she  almost  lost  her  composure. 

"Billy,  you  devil,"  she  exclaimed.  "You've 
ruined  my  make-up." 

William's  only  regret,  however,  was  that  he 
might  have  seemed  entirely  too  joyous.  In  the 
role  of  a  rejected  suitor  he  should  at  least  have 
drawn  one  long  face. 

"At  one  time  I  had  high  hopes  you  would  win," 
Sara  said,  during  the  course  of  the  afternoon. 
"You  are  so  much  better  looking  and  make  so 
much  more  show  than  Louis  does — and  that  counts 
so  in  a  husband." 

The  long  ride  home  was  a  joyful  one.  William 
Spade  was  unfettered  and  a  free  agent.  He  could 


260          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

not  help  seeing,  however,  that  the  engagement  of 
Sara  Barclay  to  another  man  would  make  a  change 
in  his  life.  It  would  lower  his  prestige  in  the  eyes 
of  certain  people.  He  would  lose  his  right  to  the 
title  of  the  Fortunate  Youth.  This  was  not  with- 
out its  pang  of  bitterness.  And  the  large  possi- 
bility which  hinged  upon  his  marriage  to  Sara — 
that  he  would  have  the  opportunity  one  day  to 
take  over  control  of  the  whole  Barclay  system, 
which  would  make  him  one  of  the  foremost  finan- 
ciers of  the  country — was  gone  past  recall.  He 
was  both  sorry  and  glad  for  that — sorry  because 
he  had  permitted  it  to  become  a  castle  in  the  air, 
glad  because  he  did  not  wish  it  to  be  said  about 
him  that  he  had  attained  success  by  marrying  into 
it. 

As  a  man  exercising  a  new  prerogative,  imme- 
diately upon  his  arrival  in  Washington,  he  called 
up  Ruth  Dunbar  on  the  telephone.  He  had  the 
right,  without  question,  to  see  her,  and  he  was  im- 
patient to  exercise  it.  It  was  a  new  and  luxurious 
sensation — deliberately  to  arrange  a  time  to  see 
her,  with  the  frank  acknowledgment  that  it  was 
solely  for  the  comfort  and  pleasure  of  seeing  her. 
At  such  other  times  as  he  had  seen  her,  with  the 
exception  of  the  time  at  the  seashore,  which  was 
a  different  atmosphere,  it  had  been  the  result  of 


"I  AM  THE  MAN"  261 

accident  or  of  their  business  relations  with  each 
other. 

She,  too,  realized  the  change,  although  she  did 
not  understand  that  he  was  exercising  a  new  pre- 
rogative. She  was  more  surprised  and  impressed 
by  the  fact  that  he  had  called  her  up  immediately 
upon  his  arrival  in  the  city.  When  she  had  hung 
up  the  telephone  receiver  and  was  still  sitting 
thoughtfully  at  the  table  upon  which  the  instru- 
ment rested,  she  wondered  that  she  should  have 
felt  that  it  made  a  difference  whether  he  called  her 
up  immediately  upon  his  arrival  or  not. 

As  she  turned  her  glance  inwards  upon  herself, 
she  was  surprised  at  finding  her  heart  registering 
elation  over  an  incident  so  trivial.  She  seemed  to 
be  looking  upon  another  woman — a  woman  with 
unusual  and  unexplained  emotions. 

Naturally  there  was  a  feeling  of  loyalty  toward 
William  Spade  in  her  heart,  a  very  certain  ad- 
miration for  his  ability  and,  lately,  an  unexpected 
congeniality  between  the  man  and  herself.  But 
this  did  not  account  for  any  quickening  of  the 
pulse,  or  for  any  sudden  blitheness  of  spirit  that 
followed  the  realization  that  she  was  the  first  per- 
son he  had  thought  of  on  coming  home. 

In  view  of  the  fact  that  she  had  long  ago  de- 
cided that  his  life  was  entirely  unrelated  to  her 


262          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

and  that  the  principles  and  aims  and  the  outlook 
upon  the  world  which  he  possessed  were,  to  her 
understanding,  distorted  and  unworthy,  this  sen- 
sitive response  to  a  sign  in  him  of  preference  for 
her  was  unreasonable. 

The  only  defense  it  had  was  that  she  felt  her 
congeniality  with  him  must  be  the  result  of  a 
development  in  his  character.  She  placed  great 
importance  upon  the  fact  that  some  business  re- 
verse had  had  a  sobering  influence  upon  him,  and 
she  was  willing  to  believe  that  it  would  induce  in 
him  a  thoughtfulness  and  a  consideration  for 
others  in  misfortune  that  would  make  him  less 
eager  to  distort  his  principles  to  conform  with  his 
headlong  desire  for  success. 

She  believed  that  his  hot  enthusiasm  to  conquer 
at  any  price  had  greatly  cooled.  She  believed 
that  there  must  have  been  a  mellowing  influence 
at  work  in  him  or  she  would  not  have  found  her- 
self drawn  toward  him.  It  seemed  unreasonable 
to  suppose  that  his  character  should  have  under- 
gone a  transformation  in  so  short  a  time;  but  she 
found  herself  believing  that  it  had.  Rose-glasses 
they  were  that  she  wore,  making  her  attempt  to 
ascribe  to  that  transcendent  feeling  in  her  heart  a 
valid  reason,  whereas  no  valid  reason  could  be 
ascribed  to  it.  Any  joy  she  felt  in  the  fact  that 


"I  AM  THE  MAN"  263 

he  was  alive  was  not  the  result  of  plan  upon  her 
part. 

She  did  not  realize,  or  at  least  not  at  that  mo- 
ment, that  personal  charm  was  not  a  thing  that 
depended  for  its  existence  upon  merit  and  well- 
doing. She  supposed  that  the  fact  that  he  had 
entered,  a  persona  grata,  into  her  heart  must  be 
proof  of  his  worthiness.  She  seemed  to  feel  that 
a  higher  power  than  her  own  human  preference 
had  decided  the  problem  for  her,  and,  passing  upon 
his  credentials,  had  held  open  the  door  of  her  heart 
to  him,  whether  she  would  or  not. 

She  did  not  quite  understand  herself,  nor  the 
brighter  eyes  that  shone  back  to  her  from  the  face 
she  saw  in  her  mirror.  But  she  was  not  inquiring 
into  that.  She  was  thinking  rather  that  William 
Spade  liked  her  white  short-sleeved  dress.  She 
was  thinking  that  her  arms  were  round  and  smooth 
— and  was  glad  that  they  were.  She  was  think- 
ing that  her  hair  looked  better  lower  upon  her 
neck  and,  having  thus  thought,  took  it  down  and 
arranged  it  in  that  manner. 

She  sat  in  a  big  chair  by  her  window,  watching 
through  the  trees  the  fading  glow  of  the  sky.  In 
her  lap  lay  the  silk  scarf — upon  her  breast  the  pin 
with  which  to  fasten  it.  Under  the  folds  that 
held  the  pin  her  heart  murmured  an  impatient 


264          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

i   • 

prelude — like  the  tuning  of  strings  which  brings 
nearer,  while  it  still  seems  to  make  far  off,  the  first 
music  of  the  orchestra. 

And  when  he  came  she  did  not  move.  She  saw 
the  automobile  draw  up  before  the  door.  The 
impatience  was  gone.  Her  young  brother  en- 
tered the  room  to  announce  that  Spade  had  come. 
She  nodded,  rising  hastily  to  her  feet  as  though  it 
had  just  occurred  to  her  that  she  was  to  go.  One 
glance  she  gave  to  her  mirror  and  then  ran  lightly 
and  swiftly  down  the  stairs. 

A  new  self-consciousness  made  her  merely 
glance  at  him — a  glance  that  paused  but  for  a 
moment  to  verify  his  eyes  and  smile — and  then 
turn  quickly  away,  to  loose  a  fictitious  entangle- 
ment between  her  scarf  and  the  clasp  at  her  waist. 
His  laugh  was  just  a  trifle  strained,  as  though  he 
too  were  covering  up  a  consciousness  of  his  own. 
They  were  alike  in  this-^for  each  of  them  the 
tuning  of  the  violins  had  stopped  and  they  stood 
listening  to  the  full  orchestra. 

She  scarcely  knew  where  they  drove  that  night. 
A  wide  white  ribbon  of  road  rolled  under  them. 
Before  them  in  the  western  sky  hung  the  young 
moon,  depending  by  an  invisible  thread  as  from  a 
single  star  above  it.  It  was  a  mark  of  unusual 


"I  AM  THE  MAN"  265 

mental  disturbance  in  him  that  he  noticed  this 
effort  of  nature. 

They  turned  about  presently.  Beside  them  ran 
the  quiet  river.  In  place  of  the  thin  moon  the 
beacon  now  before  them  was  the  top  of  the  tall 
pointed  Monument,  luminous  in  a  shaft  of  light 
and  seeming  like  a  snow-capped  mountain  whose 
peak  shone  against  the  sky.  The  evening  breeze 
carried  to  them  the  strains  of  the  waltz  a  distant 
band  played.  She  caught  the  familiar  air  and 
hummed  it  softly.  It  was  as  if  they  were  in  some 
way  detached  from  the  world;  and  all  its  scenery 
and  its  people  were  simply  a  background,  more  or 
less  indistinct.  Over  there,  across  the  now  inter- 
vening finger  of  the  Potomac,  lay  a  huge  piece  of 
stage  artifice — a  panorama  of  a  city,  alight  and 
alive,  upon  which  she  could  pick  out  landmarks  as 
if  it  were  a  map  and  not  a  real  city.  The  dark 
bulk  of  the  War  College,  lightless  and  grim,  slum- 
bered, like  the  evil  of  blood  and  carnage  it  typi- 
fied, in  menacing  quiet. 

The  splendor  of  the  dark  world  kindled  her 
imagination.  The  power  of  the  far-stretching 
night  induced  in  her  a  realization  of  the  heroic 
structure  of  the  world  and  with  that,  strangely 
enough,  of  the  heroic  structure  of  the  yearning  in 


266          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

her  heart — a  yearning  as  mysterious  and  as  beau- 
tiful as  the  night  itself. 

"Do  you  realize,"  she  asked,  "what  a  spectacle 
has  been  arranged  for  us  to  drive  through*?" 

"Is  it  just  for  us*?"  he  demanded. 

"Doesn't  it  seem  so?" 

He  paused  for  a  moment  as  if  the  simple  idea 
had  rearranged  his  conception  of  the  whole  mat- 
ter. "It  does,"  he  agreed.  "And  it's  glorious." 
His  commendation  was  given  with  a  new  and 
pleasant  conviction  of  ownership — of  joint  own- 
ership. 

"What  is  there,  I  wonder,  about  the  dark,"  she 
asked  thoughtfully,  "that  makes- it  so  appealing*?" 

"It  is  big  and  powerful,"  he  replied,  immedi- 
ately. His  definition  of  universal  appeal ! 

He  was  himself  in  a  mood  of  bigness  and  power. 
He  felt  a  pleasant  congeniality  with  the  awe- 
inspiring  majesty  of  the  night.  He  was  a  man 
writ  large,  for  whom  Providence  and  the  high  gods 
had  arranged  the  course  of  events  fortunately,  so 
that  the  world  seemed  to  belong  to  him.  He  was 
free  and  unfettered  and,  as  he  looked  at  the  allur- 
ing figure  beside  him,  white-clad  ankles  languidly 
crossed,  well-shaped  hands  clasped  contentedly  in 
her  lap,  red-brown  hair  blown  by  the  breeze  so 
that  when  he  leaned  toward  her  a  strand  of  it 


"I  AM  THE  MAN"  267 

brushed  his  face,  she  seemed  almost  to  belong  to 
him.  A  vision  of  a  fair  land  opened  out  before 
him. 

"We  were  speaking  of  power,"  she  said,  pres- 
ently; "are  you,  by  any  chance,  an  influential  per- 
son1?" 

He  looked  at  her  searchingly.  "Intermit- 
tently," he  replied. 

"Might  a  humble  stenographer  consult  you  then 
upon  a  matter  of  importance?" 

"In  a  light  and  airy  manner — to  match  the  im- 
pudence in  her  eyes?" 

"No.  Seriously."  She  laughed  softly,  and, 
raising  her  face  to  him,  added  in  a  low  tone, 
"With  becoming  deference." 

He  saw  the  gleam  in  her  eye — part  amusement 
and  part  the  usual  confidence  in  his  ability,  which 
she  never  attempted  to  conceal.  His  heart  accel- 
erated its  beat  and  the  blood  ran  hot  through  him. 
He  would  have  taken  her  in  his  arms  then  had  he 
followed  his  impulse. 

"You  would  not  have  said  that,"  he  asserted, 
his  eyes  upon  her,  "had  you  not  been  so  sure." 

"Of  what?" 

"Of  your  own  power." 

The  blood  rose  to  her  face,  but  the  darkness  hid 
the  flush  from  him.  She  had  no  reply  for  his 


268          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

speech.  Instead  she  waited,  almost  painfully, 
wondering  if  he  would  say  more.  Then  they  both 
remembered  that  she  was  asking  his  advice  upon  a 
question.  She  spoke  and,  unknowing,  steered 
their  frail  craft  out  of  smooth  harbor  into  turbu- 
lent seas. 

"I  have  a  friend  in  trouble,"  she  said.  "She 
and  her  husband,  by  hard  work  and  great  self- 
denial,  had  earned  what  was  for  them  a  large  sum 
of  money — earned  it  honestly  and  fairly ;  and  then 
some  powerful  outside  person — after  having  let 
them,  in  common  with  a  hundred  others,  struggle 
to  accumulate  this,  risking  their  last  penny  to  do 
it — came  forward  with  a  legal  quibble  for  which 
they  were  entirely  unprepared,  'took  away  the 
money  and  left  them  with  a  mere  pittance." 

She  paused,  and  something  of  the  gravity  in  his 
face  seemed  to  warn  her  that  her  craft  was  no 
longer  in  harbor.  His  mouth  was  drawn  tight, 
and  his  eye  was  fixed  upon  the  road  ahead. 

"Are  they — these  friends  of  yours — employees 
of  any  of  the  war  order  firms  *?"  he  asked. 

"Why,  yes,"  she  replied.  "But  why  attempt 
to  tell  you  things'?  You  know  everything,  don't 
you?' 

A  discomfort  that  he  did  not  understand  came 


"I  AM  THE  MAN"  269 

over  him.  It  was  no  pricking  of  conscience,  but 
a  keen  disappointment  that  he  must  align  him- 
self against  her,  and  sever  with  a  stroke  a  bond 
that  had  hardly  been  formed. 

"I  want  your  help — "  she  began. 

But  he  was  scarcely  listening.  The  car  slowed 
down  until  the  hand  on  the  dial  pointed  to  an 
unaccustomed  figure. 

"Was  it — was  the  company  the  Old  Dominion 
Steel  Company?" 

This  time  she  showed  no  pleasure  in  his  knowl- 
edge. A  fear,  a  disconcerting  fear  wedged  its 
way  into  her  mind. 

"Yes,"  she  replied — and  listened  to  the  un- 
quiet beating  of  her  heart. 

He  drew  a  long  breath. 

"Then,"  he  said,  resolutely,  "I  am  the  man 
who  is  taking  the  money  you  speak  of." 

For  a  moment  it  seemed  as  if  neither  of  them 
breathed.  Then  he  set  his  teeth  and  the  car  shot 
forward.  Unconsciously  she  drew  away  from 
him.  The  night,  whose  charm  had  but  a  mo- 
ment ago  stirred  the  chords  of  her  heart,  became 
a  mere  sullen  darkness.  She  stared  unseeing  at 
the  road.  She  listened  with  dulled  ears  to  the 
throb  of  the  engine.  And  when  she  saw  again 


270          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

the  reflection  of  the  small  moon  upon  the  water, 
she  remembered  that  a  short  time  before  it  had 
given  her  pleasure. 

With  a  feeling  of  bitterness  she  realized  that 
she  had  drawn  away  from  him — as  from  some- 
thing repulsive.  It  was  punishment  to  her  to 
treat  him  thus,  for  the  place  he  had  formed  for 
himself  in  her  regard  had  clothed  him  with  a 
certain  sanctity.  And  what  is  worse  than  a 
broken  god? 

If  in  her  disappointment  there  was  any  ele- 
ment of  pity,  it  was  not  for  herself — but  rather 
for  him.  No  separate  emotions,  however,  dis- 
tinguished themselves  in  her  benumbed  mind. 
She  was  not  thinking.  No  words  came  to  her 
lips  to  say  the  reply  of  some  sort  she  thought  she 
would  have  made  ere  this. 

That  reply  was  never  made.  The  car  rolled 
on.  If  it  was  reproach  she  wished  to  convey  to 
him,  she  said  no  word  of  it.  If  it  was  disappoint- 
ment, if  it  was  contempt,  if  it  was  anger,  he  never 
knew  it.  Nor  did  she  pause  to  gather  up  those 
incidental  emotions  and  catalogue  them  in  her 
mind.  The  tragedy  was  that  the  dream  was  shat- 
tered. She  did  not  care  where  the  pieces  had 
fallen.  The  pathos  of  it  was  that  he  had  become 
so  valueless  in  her  perspective  that  her  mind  had 


"I  AM  THE  MAN"  271 

not  the  energy  to  think  toward  him  reproach  or 
indignation. 

For  his  part,  having  no  word  from  her,  he 
chose  the  nearest  way  to  her  house,  and  made  the 
big  car  speed  along  the  quiet  streets.  It  seemed 
neither  long  nor  short  to  her.  She  scarcely  knew 
what  streets  they  traversed.  Until  presently  they 
drew  up  before  her  door. 

A  sudden  fear  of  being  alone  seized  her.  She 
did  not  want  to  be  with  him,  yet  she  did  not  want 
him  to  leave  her.  Mentally  and  bodily  she  was 
lonely.  In  her  unsettled  mind  his  very  pres- 
ence, which  was  obnoxious  to  her,  was  still  a  com- 
fort. 

With  a  grave  courtesy  he  held  out  his  hand. 
She  put  hers — a  cold  hand  it  was — into  it  and 
instantly  withdrew  it. 

"Good  night,"  he  said. 

Her  voice  sounded  strange  and  far  away. 

"Good-bye." 

And  it  was  good-bye,  she  felt  in  her  heart. 


CHAPTER  XXII 

THE    RECKONING 

As  she  undressed  that  night,  her  mind  began 
to  recover  from  the  first  shock  of  the  blow  it  had 
received — and  she  began  to  think  about  things 
in  a  more  connected  way.  It  was  a  limping  and 
halting  analysis  that  she  made,  an  analysis  that 
paused  ever  and  again  to  let  pass  on  a  wave  of 
self-pity.  Had  her  body  been  beaten  it  could  not 
have  been  more  painful  than  this  smarting  of  her 
punished  spirit. 

In  her  own  mind  she  had  capitulated  to  this 
man  as  surely  as  if  they  had  crossed  the  brink  on 
which  they  had  hovered  and  had  told  him  in 
so  many  words.  And  he  had  turned  out  to  be 
one  who  stole — yes,  that  was  the  word — under  the 
guise  of  taking  his  own!  It  was  a  fresh  blow 
upon  her  embittered  soul  each  time  she  admitted 
the  crime  and  the  hypocrisy  that  covered  it  up. 

She  wondered  that  she  had  not  burst  out  in  a 
tirade  of  anger  against  him.  She  wondered,  now, 
when  she  was  exposing  herself  to  her  own  scorn- 

272 


THE  RECKONING  273 

ful  and  humiliating  contempt,  that  she  found  in 
her  mind  no  contempt  for  him.  But  she  began 
to  know  soon  that  her  disappointment  and  sore- 
ness of  spirit  were  too  strong  within  herself  to 
blame  him.  He  had  followed  his  own  course. 
She  had  thought  that  course  had  been  leading  on 
toward  the  path  she  believed  was  right  and 
creditable  for  him  to  follow.  Now  that  the  sud- 
den shock  had  informed  her  it  was  not  such  a 
path,  no  blame  rested  upon  him  for  her  disap- 
pointment— which  was  the  bitter  thing  she  had 
•now  to  bear. 

She  had  known  before  that  his  life  was  laid  in 
places  which  did  not  tend  to  make  his  path  as 
straight  as  she  would  have  wished  it  to  be.  He 
had  been  educated  in  a  college  where  the  slogan 
had  been  to  get  through,  without  taking  into  con- 
sideration whether  he  was  morally  satisfying  the 
requirements.  One  of  the  strongest  principles 
this  life  had  imprinted  upon  him  was  to  get  as 
much  as  possible  in  return  for  as  little  effort  as 
possible.  He  had  had  no  education  there — nor 
since — to  teach  him  that  the  most  valuable 
achievements  are  those  earned  by  hard  work  and 
striving.  That  'was  a  prosaic  idea;  and  the  peo- 
ple he  had  mingled  with  since  he  left  college  knew 
of  no  crime  worse  than  being  prosaic.  They  had 


274          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

characterized  as  prosaic  almost  all  the  homely  sen- 
timents and  virtues.  Religion,  faith,  diligence, 
self-sacrifice,  charity,  consideration  for  the  wants 
and  rights  of  their  fellow  men  they  regarded  as 
quixotic,  and  subscribed  to  only  their  broadest 
and  most  spectacular  aspect. 

What  chance  to  lead  an  unselfish  life  had  a 
man  whose  soul  had  been  veneered  over  with  such 
ideas?  What  chance  was  there  that  such  a  man, 
as  he  took  each  step,  would  watch  the  effect  of 
it  upon  others — instead  of  simply  upon  himself? 

No,  she  did  not  blame  him.  He  was  too  re- 
mote from  her  to  blame.  She  could  not  think 
of  him  as  having  a  personal  relation  with  her,  for 
that  brought  too  vividly  to  her  the  remembrance 
of  how  far  she  had  let  that  personal  relationship 
proceed. 

She  had  just  laid  upon  her  bureau  the  enamelled 
gold  pin  that  belonged  to  him — with  a  mixture 
of  distaste  and  tenderness.  Everything  that  re- 
minded her  of  him  was  infinitely  valuable  in  that 
it  was  symbolic  of  a  dream  of  happiness,  and 
abhorrent  in  that  it  reminded  her  of  her  shame 
because  that  dream  was  no  longer  possible. 

There  was  a  five  line  note  in  her  desk  from 
him,  treasured  as  the  only  personal  message  he 
had  ever  written  her.  On  the  wall  hung  the  lit- 


THE  RECKONING  275 

tie  cheap  picture  of  Dante  and  Beatrice  he  had 
given  her.  On  the  bed  lay  the  white  dress  he 
liked.  The  gold  pin  she  would  send  back  to 
him,  but  these  three  things  were  her  own — the 
only  remembrances  of  her  completed  romance. 
Pathetically  inadequate!  A  few  written  words, 
a  tiny  picture  and  a  white  dress ! 

Then  her  pity  for  herself  overwhelmed  her. 
Hot  tears  welled  up  in  her  eyes  and  ran  down 
her  cheeks.  Hot  tears  dropped  upon  the  white 
dress  as  she  hung  it  in  the  closet,  from  which  it 
would  never  again  be  taken  for  him.  Hot  tears 
dropped  upon  Dante  and  Beatrice  as  she  removed 
them  from  their  place  upon  the  wall  and,  deep 
under  the  white  folds  in  the  drawer  of  her  bureau, 
buried  them.  It  was  as  if  in  them  she  were  bury- 
ing life  and  hope.  Hot  tears  blinded  her  as  she 
tore  the  note  across  and  again  across  and  laid 
the  mangled  thing  in  the  basket,  with  a  gesture 
that  in  spite  of  her  determined  face,  could  not 
but  be  gentle.  For  each  rift  of  that  paper  had 
been  as  a  rift  in  her  own  heart. 

"Oh,  you  coward!"  she  cried,  with  withering 
contempt,  to  her  reflection  in  the  glass.  "To 
cry!" 

But  the  image  in  the  glass,  unconvinced,  con- 
tinued to  weep.  Brave  resolutions  not  to  lament 


276  THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

do  not  go  into  effect  so  soon.  She  might  summon 
all  the  power  of  her  will  and  say  "I  will  be  calm," 
but  she  could  not  be  until  all  the  mysterious  in- 
voluntary impulses  and  emotions  and  forces  within 
her  were  calm. 

Far  off  the  bells  chimed  musically  the  quarter- 
hour.  She  darkened  her  room  and,  in  her  rib- 
boned gown,  looked  out  upon  the  night,  her  white 
arms  and  neck  gleaming  in  the  reflected  light 
from  the  street.  No  call  of  sleep  urged  her  to 
the  bed  behind  her.  She  felt  that  she  would 
hear  the  musical  bells  many  a  time  before  she 
slept. 

The  dismal  fact  was  that  she  had  loved  this 
man.  Her  active  mind,  eager  to  continue  her 
punishment,  kept  this  diligently  before  her;  and, 
as  if  it  enjoyed  finding  new  and  entertaining  ways 
of  applying  the  scourge,  reminded  her  constantly 
that,  having  loved  him,  she  must  see  him  daily 
and,  seeing  him,  remember  that  she  had  loved  him. 
A  shamed  flush  rose  to  her  face  at  the  realization 
of  it.  With  the  tumult  fresh  in  her  breast  could 
she  treat  him  with  the  calmness  and  ease  that 
would  cover  up  the  effects  of  the  storm  he  had 
caused1?  For  she  would  as  soon  now  he  saw  her 
naked  body  as  her  naked  soul. 

Many  a  time  she  heard  the  quarter-hours  chime 


THE  RECKONING 


277 


that  night  as  she  lay  upon  a  torrid  pillow.  Their 
soothing,  musical  tones,  like  far-off  bells  heard 
in  pleasant  dreams,  spoke  to  her  of  peace  and 
quiet,  which  came  to  her  not  at  all.  Toward 
morning  she  slept  fitfully — and  awoke  to  the  real- 
ization that  here  was  the  beginning  of  day— a 
hard  day. 

She  must  meet  him.  The  hard  and  fast 
schedule  of  her  life  prescribed  the  course  of  her 
day  and  at  certain  times  she  must  be  in  certain 
places.  She  could  not  vary  that  course  and  avoid 
him.  And  when  she  met  him  she  must  make  it 
clear  to  him  that  their  ways  were  too  divergent 
for  her  to  devote  more  of  her  time  to  the  cultiva- 
tion of  his  friendship.  At  the  same  time  she  must 
let  him  see  that  she  did  not  presume  to  be  his 
judge;  and  conceal  from  him  the  fact  that  kept 
forcing  itself  so  near  the  surface  that  she  felt  all 
the  people  on  the  street  could  see  and  understand 
it — that  the  longing  in  her  made  it  impossible  that 
she  should  be  anything  else  but  his  judge. 

She  must  frown  and  be  firm  lest  he  think  his 
erring  was  of  too  little  importance  to  her;  and 
she  must  smile  and  be  light-hearted  lest  he  know 
it  was  too  great. 

She  waited  at  her  desk,  absolutely  still  and 
idle,  awaiting  his  coming — like  a  culprit  listen- 


278          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

ing  for  the  step  of  her  executioner.  Her  hands, 
tightly  clasped  in  her  lap,  were  moist  with  ex- 
citement. The  forty-five  minutes  was  many 
hours  long.  And  then  when  she  felt  that  she 
could  stand  the  strain  not  a  moment  longer,  she 
heard  his  familiar  step  upon  the  tile  floor  of  the 
corridor  without. 

Like  an  actress  taking  position  for  the  rise  of 
the  curtain,  she  rose  from  her  chair.  What  Spade 
saw  when  he  entered  was  an  easy,  nonchalant 
figure,  at  the  drawer  of  the  filing  case,  who  gave 
him  a  pleasant  smile  over  her  shoulder.  He  re- 
turned it  in  kind,  giving  no  sign  of  the  wonder 
that  was  in  his  mind,  and  passed  on  into  his  in- 
ner office.  He  too  sat  quiet,  reading  without 
comprehending  the  thin  sheaf  of  mail  that  lay 
before  him.  For  he  knew  too  that  something  had 
to  be  done,  and  done  soon — something  to  let  him 
know  where  he  stood  and  where  she  stood.  He 
was  thinking  how  he  could  best  accomplish  this, 
when  he  looked  up  and  found  her  beside  him,  hold- 
ing an  unimportant  letter,  about  which  she  asked 
an  unimportant  question,  which  he  answered  at 
random  and  could  not  a  moment  later  have  re- 
membered what  he  had  said.  Nor  could  she. 

He  knew  that  she  must  not  leave  that  room  be- 
fore he  had  had  an  understanding  with  her.  So 


THE  RECKONING  279 

engrossed  was  he  with  that  idea  that  he  did  not 
stop  to  think  whether  the  letter  and  the  question 
were  not  on  her  part  a  mere  excuse,  and  she  her- 
self as  anxious  as  he  to  say  her  speech  and  stand 
again  on  firm  ground.  She  sat  down  in  the  chair 
opposite  him  and  with  a  haste  so  feverish  that 
she  was  certain  he  would  know,  in  spite  of  her, 
how  great  a  stress  of  excitement  she  labored  un- 
der, she  unclasped  his  pin  from  her  waist.  He 
saw  the  intent  of  this  act. 

"Do  you  see  this  valuable  jewel1?"  she  asked, 
lightly,  extending  her  open  hand  with  the 
enamalled  gold  lying  in  it. 

"It  is  very  beautiful,"  he  replied,  trying  not  to 
think  how  alluringly  soft  was  the  palm  in  which 
it  lay.  He  was  quick  to  see  the  purpose  of  the 
interview,  and  believed  from  her  lightness  of  man- 
ner that  she  was  simply  trying  not  to  be  too  hard 
upon  him.  He  somehow  felt  instinctively  the 
uselessness  of  discussing  the  difference  that  lay 
between  them.  It  was  too  fundamental.  He 
saw  from  her  one  act  and  her  one  speech  what 
course  she  had  decided  upon.  And  if  she  were 
trying  not  to  be  too  hard  upon  him,  he  would  try 
not  to  be  hard  upon  her. 

Therefore  he  asked,  "Is  it  an  heirloom*?"  with 
a  lightness  to  match  her  own. 


280  THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

"No,  it  is  modern." 

"A  device,  no  doubt,"  he  said,  idly  drawing 
upon  his  blotter,  "to  fasten  some  gossamer  thin- 
ness about  one's  shoulders  in  the  interests  of 
warmth." 

She  felt  a  certain  tingling  in  her  cheeks  at  the 
memory  those  words  brought  up,  but  she  met 
his  lifted  eyes  calmly. 

"It  has  been  used  for  that  purpose.  I  am 
only  the  custodian  of  it — a  position,"  she  added, 
slowly,  "of  trust  and  honor.  But  whose  re- 
sponsibility rests  heavily  upon  me.  I  wish  the 
owner  to  have  it." 

He  rose  from  his  chair  and  strode  twice  up  and 
down  the  room.  She  rose  also.  When  she 
moved,  he  stopped  where  he  was.  She  walked 
with  an  affectation  of  carelessness  to  the  corner 
of  the  room  where  hung  his  Norfolk  coat. 

"The  pin,"  she  said  calmly,  "I  shall  fasten 
with  my  own  hand  upon  your  coat." 

He  watched  the  operation  in  silence.  She 
turned  to  him  with  a  smile.  What  she  had  meant 
to  say  was  simply  that  she  had  been  away  from 
her  work  too  long  and  must  return.  What  she 
did  say,  her  voice  faltering  over  the  three  words, 
was,  "Treasure  it  always."  And  then  she  hur- 


THE  RECKONING  281 

ried  from  the  room,  lest  her  trembling  lips  be- 
tray her. 

He  heard  the  keys  of  her  typewriter  clicking, 
with  a  deceiving  air  of  industry.  But  what  her 
hands  wrote  was  "Now  is  the  time  for  all  good 
men  to  come  to  the  aid  of  their  country.  Now  is 
the  time — "  and  so  on,  over  and  over  and  over 
again,  with  transposed  letters,  with  spaces  where 
there  should  have  been  no  spaces,  and  no  spaces 
where  there  should  have  been  spaces,  and  there 
was  no  health  in  it.  She  scarcely  knew  that  she 
wrote  it.  And  he,  sitting  at  his  desk,  bored 
thoughtful  holes  into  his  blotter  with  his  pencil. 
Until  presently,  as  though  hearing  the  oft-re- 
peated call  for  the  man  whose  aid  was  desired,  he 
rose  abruptly  from  his  chair  and  entered  the  outer 
office. 

An  excited  and  feverish  man  he  was,  but  grim  of 
purpose.  He  snapped  the  catch  upon  the  outer 
door,  shutting  out  intruders.  He  had  done  this 
a  few  times  before  when  he  did  not  wish  to  be 
disturbed,  and  had  apologized  for  it.  He  said 
nothing  now,  however,  and  paced  up  and  down 
the  room.  Uncertainly  she-  reached  for  her  note- 
book. 

"Ruth,"  he  began,  suddenly  stopping  where 


282          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

he  was  in  his  march.  Then  he  saw  the  note-book. 
"Don't  take  this  down,"  he  burst  out.  "I  am 
proposing  marriage  to  you." 

A  moment  of  aghast  silence  and  then,  their 
tightened  nerves  relaxing,  they  broke  into  uncon- 
trolled laughter. 

She  had  never  thought  that  when  the  man  she 
loved  proposed  to  her,  she  would  simply  laugh. 
And  yet  that  laugh  brought  them  close  together, 
as  if  there  were  no  flaw  in  the  perfect  sympathy 
between  them — and  made  doubly  hard  the  task 
that  lay  before  her. 

"Ruth,"  he  said,  when  they  were  rational  again. 
"I  insist  upon  your  knowing  that  I  love  you. 
I  think  of  you  and  want  you  every  minute. 
When  I  found  that  there  was  no  other  obligation 
that — bound  me,  the  revolving  of  the  train  wheels 
carrying  me  here  was  music  all  the  way.  Every 
view  I  saw  of  rivers  and  hills  through  the  car 
windows,  I  wished  you  there  to  see  also.  Two 
nights  ago  when  the  sun  set,  I  thought  I  had 
never  seen  the  world  so  beautiful  and  I — needed 
only  you  to  be  with  me." 

Hard  indeed  he  was  making  her  task  for  her 
now.  She  was  filled  with  pride  because  he  felt 
thus  toward  her,  because  her  influence  had  reached 
to  him  over  a  thousand  miles  and  tinged  the  world 


THE  RECKONING  283 

about  him  with  thoughts  of  her.  But  it  was  a 
bitter  sweetness — the  momentary  enjoyment  of 
a  blessing  that  was  to  be  taken  away. 

"I  think  I  understand,"  he  said,  gently,  "what 
you  think.  I  say  what  I  have  said  mainly  for 
your  information — to  keep  the  records  straight, 
so  to  speak." 

"I  am  more  honored — and  touched,"  she  re- 
plied, struggling  to  control  herself,  "than  I  could 
ever  explain  to  you." 

He  drew  a  long  breath.  As  she  sat  there  after 
she  had  said  this,  not  looking  at  him  at  all,  he 
knew  how  strongly,  how  passionately  he  wanted 
her.  But  he  held  himself  in  check. 

"As  for  myself,"  he  said,  quietly,  "I  love  you, 
and  therefore  I  know  that  in  your  eyes  I  have 
been  weighed  in  the  balance  and  found  wanting." 

It  was  a  brave  thing  to  say,  for  in  the  balance 
that  he  judged  himself  by,  he  was  not  wanting. 
He  was  simply  admitting  that  her  decision  upon 
this  point  could  not  be  controverted.  For  the 
question  now  was  not  what  he  was,  but  what  she 
thought  he  was. 

Her  face  was  pale,  but  she  met  his  glance  firmly. 
"That  is  true,"  she  replied,  with  a  courage  equal 
to  his  own. 

He    resumed    his    walk.     "This    attitude    of 


284          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

yours,"  he  said,  "is  not  a  thing  I  can  understand. 
It  is  something  above  and  beyond  me.  I  seem  to 
have  wronged,  unknowingly,  people  I  never  have 
seen  and  whose  affairs  have  no  direct  connection 
with  mine.  And  yet  this  accidental  wrong  on 
my  part  brands  me  and  disgraces  me." 

She  felt  the  note  of  bitterness  in  his  words, 
and  it  stirred  her  to  self-defense. 

"Was  your  action,"  she  asked,  "to  your  mind 
absolutely  straightforward,  then*?" 

"You  are  confusing  straightforward  with  hon- 
est," he  accused. 

"But  the  employees  earned  the  money,  and  you 
did  not,"  she  exclaimed. 

"They  used  their  hands  and  not  their  eyes. 
I  used  my  eyes  and  not  my  hands.  That  seems 
easy  to  you,  and  you  therefore  say  I  did  not  earn 
the  money." 

"I  say,"  she  exclaimed  hotly,  "that  each  of 
them  by  saving  and  scrimping  accumulated  a  for- 
tune— to  them — a  pittance  to  you.  And  you,  by 
the  exercise  of  a  power  not  given  to  them,  col- 
lected the  pittances  from  them  all  to  make  a  huge 
sum  for  yourself.  You  took  the  blood  of  their 
hearts." 

His  face  turned  gray,  like  that  of  a  prisoner 
receiving  sentence.  He  paused  by  the  side  of  the 


THE  RECKONING  285 

long  table  and  stood  with  his  hands  pressed  upon 
its  surface,  so  that  one  looking  closely  could  have 
seen  that  the  ends  of  the  fingers  were  white  and 
bloodless. 

"The  question,"  he  said  in  a  moment,  earnestly, 
yet  in  a  voice  calm  and  controlled,  "is  just  how 
far  I  am  my  brother's  keeper.  Am  I  supposed  to 
safeguard  him  against  his  own  errors  of  judg- 
ment? Am  I  supposed  to  be  responsible  for  his 
misdirected  efforts'?" 

"Does  that  justification  satisfy  you1?"  she  de- 
manded quickly. 

"I  am  not  arguing  with  my  conscience  now," 
he  replied.  "I  am  speaking  of  a  universal  prin- 
ciple. I  do  not  believe  it  is  to  any  man's  good 
that  I  lay  in  his  lap  the  thing  he  has  not  earned. 
The  fact  that  he  has  labored  for  it  does  not  sig- 
nify that  he  has  earned  it." 

She  passed  her  hand  over  her  eyes  in  a  baffled 
yet  determined  way.  "The  difference  between 
right  and  wrong,"  she  said,  presently,  "is  one  that 
I  am  not  skillful  enough  to  define.  But  in  order 
to  make  yourself  happy  you  have  made  a  hundred 
unhappy.  I  cannot  but  think  that  is  wrong."- 

He  looked  fixedly  out  of  the  window,  his  hands 
still  resting  on  the  table.  It  was  as  if  he  were 
trying  to  decide  whether  he  should  say  what  was 


286          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

on  his  mind.  His  pride  made  -him  turn  from  any 
appearance  of  one  in  the  wrong,  defending  him- 
self. 

"My  father,"  he  said  at  length,  his  glance  still 
outside  upon  the  blue  sky  and  the  white  roaming 
clouds,  "in  all  his  transactions  considered  the  case 
from  the  standpoint  of  the  other  man.  He 
played  the  game  with  his  own  cards  on  the  table, 
even  if  his  opponents'  were  concealed.  In  this 
way  he  did  himself  incalculable  injury  and,  as  it 
turned  out,  put  a  premium  on  dishonesty.  He  is 
now  a  broken  and  disappointed  man." 

She  looked  at  him  wondering,  realizing  that, 
half  unconscious  of  her,  he  had  by  some  miracle 
opened  to  her  sight  a  recess  of  his  spirit  that  be- 
fore she  had  not  been  permitted  to  view — a  little 
alcove,  she  thought,  of  simplicity  and  sincerity. 

"When  my  father  invented  a  certain  well- 
known  device  now  universally  used,"  he  went  on, 
"he  discovered  shortly  after  the  patent  was 
granted,  in  an  old  French  engineering  magazine 
a  crude  but  quite  similar  apparatus  described. 
As  this  would  give  grounds  for  the  contention 
that  his  idea  was  not  original  and  therefore  not 
patentable,  he  felt  it  his  duty  to  tell  his  partner 
of  his  discovery.  And  his  partner,  having  the 
fact  in  his  possession,  had  the  patent  annulled  and 


THE  RECKONING  287 

is  now  manufacturing  the  article  himself.  He  is 
a  millionaire  and  a  successful  man.  My  father 
is  a  discouraged  man,  with  a  record  of  nothing 
accomplished." 

"But  if  he  did  what  was  right — ?" 

"He  did  what  he  thought  was  right,"  Spade 
corrected.  "A  person's  conscience  is  a  strange 
thing — it  must  be  regulated  like  a  watch.  A  time 
comes  when  it  has  to  be  set  forward  twenty-five 
or  thirty  years." 

"The  honesty,"  he  went  on,  "of  the  old  fash- 
ioned man  who  sold  a  cake  of  soap  over  the  coun- 
ter was  a  simple  matter.  Not  so  very  long  ago 
most  of  our  commercial  transactions  were  like 
that.  Now  our  world  is  unbelievably  complex. 
When  a  dollar  comes  to  us  we  cannot  say  from 
whose  hand  it  comes.  In  the  case  of  the  cake  of 
soap,  the  purchaser  was  the  ultimate  individual 
concerned  in  the  transaction.  It  was  possible  to 
know  whether  he  was  wronged  or  not.  But  in 
the  maze  of  our  business,  no  human  power  could 
guess  all  the  ultimate  individuals  of  each  trans- 
action, and  consider  whether  they  would  be 
wronged.  Such  honesty  could  only  accompany 
the  omniscience  of  God  Himself." 

It  was  not  merely  plausible  glibness.  It  was 
conviction.  The  insidious  part  of  the  influence 


288          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

that  worked  upon  him  was  that  as  each  moral 
prop  was  withdrawn  there  was  substituted  in  its 
place  a  self-convincing  reason  for  its  withdrawal. 
Each  step  backward  was  accompanied  by  a  con- 
viction that  it  was  a  step  forward.  The  absorb- 
ing of  each  principle  that  made  for  the  decadence 
of  the  nation  was  felt  to  be  the  absorbing  of  a 
principle  made  necessary  by  the  expanding  and 
reaching  up  of  the  nation. 

Poor  Ruth!  As  she  looked  at  this  earnest 
figure  with  his  broad  shoulders  turned  to  her, 
conviction  was  far  from  her.  She  was  helpless 
before  his  words,  but  they  could  not  extinguish  the 
faith  within  her  that  right  was  always  right  and 
wrong  was  always  wrong. 

"And  because  of  what  you  say,"  she  asked  him, 
gently,  "do  we  abolish  honesty  altogether?" 

His  jaw  closed  firmly.  "We  certainly  amend 
it,"  he  replied,  "to  fit  the  conditions  that  ex- 
ist." 

Truth  unanswerable  it  was  to  him — heresy  to 
her.  It  was  well  he  still  looked  meditating  out 
over  the  city,  and  did  not  see  the  bright  film  over 
her  eyes.  It  hurt  her  like  a  physical  pain — that 
speech.  Amended  honesty!  With  it  there  also 
seemed  to  be  amended  faith,  amended  charity, 
amended  unselfishness,  amended  right  and 


THE  RECKONING  289 

amended  wrong.  The  whole  Word  of  God  para- 
phrased for  the  sake  of  ease  and  convenience. 
As  she  looked  at  him  through  the  mist  of  her 
tears,  he  was  like  a  strayed  sheep.  Her  tears 
were  because  she  was  not  the  shepherd  that  had 
the  power  to  bring  him  back. 

He  saw,  or  felt,  the  tears  then.  In  a  moment 
he  was  standing  over  her,  his  hand  upon  her  shoul- 
der. "Don't  you  see,"  he  pleaded,  "I  am  right*? 
I  have  followed  my  convictions.  I  have  ordered 
my  life  as  I  know  it  ought  to  be  ordered. 
Couldn't  you  consider  that,  and  think  of  me  as 
the  man  who  wants  you  to  be  his  wife?" 

She  sprang  to  her  feet  and  retreated  from  him, 
both  her  hands  clutching  with  vicelike  grip  the 
drapery  over  her  heart. 

"No!"  she  cried,  with  eyes  now  frankly  stream- 
ing tears,  "I  could  not  think  of  you  as  my  hus- 
band." 

He  gazed  long  and  earnestly  at  her.  Pity, 
admiration,  longing,  and  an  unquenchable  desire 
to  possess  her  overpowered  his  reserve.  The  glis- 
tening tears  upon  her  cheeks  loosed  all  his  re- 
straint. 

"Tell  me  one  thing,"  he  exclaimed,  hotly,  im- 
petuously, "you  have  talked  theory  to  me.  Could 
you  in  spite  of  that  love  me*?  Do  you  love  me?" 


290          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

He  might  have  had  reason  to  think  she  did. 
But  he  waited  anxiously.  And  for  her  it  was  a 
bitter  question.  If  a  willingness  to  give  up  her 
life  for  him,  to  permit  her  whole  existence  to  re- 
volve about  him,  to  consider  his  presence  sunshine, 
and  his  absence  darkness — if  that  were  love,  she 
loved  him.  But  if  it  meant  looking  up  to  him, 
modelling  her  life  upon  his,  marrying  him — 
She  met  his  eyes  with  her  own  tear  flooded  ones 
— steadily. 

"No,"  she  said,  unflinching,  "I  do  not  love 
you." 

And  held  the  gaze  until  his  office  door  closed 
behind  him. 


CHAPTER  XXIII 

DISASTER 

Twice  that  morning  after  the  door  had  closed 
behind  him  was  it  opened  again : — once  when  she 
entered  to  lay  a  telegram  upon  his  desk — a  desk 
unlittered  with  the  signs  of  industry;  and  again 
when  he  came  to  ask  her  to  telephone  and  have 
a  stateroom  reserved  at  Norfolk  on  the  Merchants 
and  Miners  boat  for  Boston — not  that  he  might 
not  equally  well  have  performed  that  duty  him- 
self on  this  occasion,  but  that  habit  was  strong. 

The  telegram  was  a  welcome  thing.  It  was 
from  a  client  he  had  recently  seen  in  Boston,  say- 
ing that  if  he  could  come  there  immediately,  the 
deal  they  had  discussed  could  be  arranged.  He 
cared  little  for  the  business,  but  it  gave  him  an 
opportunity  to  be  away  from  his  office,  where  he 
had  created  a  situation  at  present  too  tense  for 
its  two  occupants  to  endure. 

It  seemed  therefore,  as  if  Providence  had  ar- 
ranged this  circumstance  for  him.  Partly  in  or- 
der to  give  Time,  the  Healer,  more  space  in  which 
to  apply  at  least  first  aid  to  the  injured  and  partly 

291 


292          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

on  account  of  the  more  agreeable  and  pleasant  na- 
ture of  the  longer  trip,  he  decided  it  would  be 
advisable  to  go  by  boat  rather  than  by  train. 
This  would  be  giving  Ruth  an  opportunity  to  re- 
cover from  the  turmoil  he  knew  he  must  have 
caused  in  her  and  to  subjugate  the  embarrassment 
that  would  result  from  it,  and,  by  the  same  act, 
give  his  own  somewhat  battered  emotions  several 
days  of  calm  and  solitude  in  which  to  recuperate. 

Could  he  have  foreseen  the  calm  that  was  to 
result,  he  might  have  made  other  arrangements. 
For  Destiny,  the  queer,  capricious  damsel,  hates 
to  have  people  prophesy  as  to  her  future  acts. 
When  one  counts  upon  calm,  she  furnishes  turmoil 
and  when  one  counts  upon  turmoil  she  furnishes 
insipid  calm. 

Spade  went  by  train  to  Norfolk,  whence  the 
boat  was  to  leave  at  about  sundown.  The  first 
evidences  of  turmoil  came  when  he  walked  up 
the  gang  plank  following  a  squad  of  people  bear- 
ing the  legend  "Peace."  But  what  is  in  a  name1? 
The  dictionary's  definition  of  that  word  is  "calm 
and  absence  of  strife."  The  banner  must  have 
referred  to  a  different  world,  for  the  peace  that 
followed  it  contained  neither  of  these  properties. 

The  clan  that  rallied  round  this  guidon  were 
inventors.  They  had  invented  a  new  religion, 


DISASTER 


293 


and  they  were  promoting  it  to  the  best  of  their 
ability.  It  did  not  develop  in  what  way  this  re- 
ligion was  superior  to  other  religions,  except  that 
by  reason  of  having  been  designed  and  made  to 
order  to  suit  them,  they  were  satisfied  with  it. 

The  boat  seethed  with  them.  At  every  stair 
and  door,  in  every  easy  chair,  on  every  couch  and 
settee,  to  windward  and  to  leeward,  in  sun  and 
in  shade,  lolled  and  lounged  or  scurried  restlessly 
about,  like  a  plague  of  locusts,  queer  human  peo- 
ple with  white  ribbons  streaming  from  their 
bosoms  on  each  of  which  was  inscribed  "Disciple." 
William  followed  the  squeaking  shoes  of  one  of 
these  individuals  from  one  end  of  the  boat  to 
the  other,  impelled  by  a  curiosity  of  long  stand- 
ing to  know  just  what  a  disciple  was  like. 

They  ran  rather  extensively  to  patriarchs. 
The  man  with  the  complaining  shoes  whom  Wil- 
liam had  followed,  wore  a  venerable  gray  beard 
flowing  down  over  his  chest.  At  first  William 
played  with  the  thought  that  he  was  a  detective 
and  that  this  was  his  disguise.  But  the  presence 
of  other  faces  of  similar  design  convinced  him 
that  this  was  the  way  the  gentleman  desired  his 
face  to  look  and  that  the  beard  concealed  no  sin- 
ister and  underhand  purpose. 

The  decks  and  the  saloons  resounded  with  the 


294          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

buzzing  occasioned  by  the  social  intercourse  of 
these  persons.  William  gazed  in  wonder  at 
them.  Difference  in  their  sex,  age,  coloring  and 
dress  could  not  conceal  the  uncanny  similarity 
that  existed  between  them  all,  and  differentiated 
them  from  average  humans.  It  was  evident  that 
they  were  all  laboring  under  the  intoxication  of 
an  unaccustomed  excitement — that  this  trip  was 
to  them  an  event  which  was  to  lend  the  color  of 
romance  to  the  remainder  of  their  lives. 

Therefore  while  their  blue  and  white  banner 
said  "Peace,"  they  wandered  about  in  a  most  un- 
peaceful  manner,  like  so  many  dipsomaniacs, 
keyed  up  to  an  unnatural  hilarity.  Intemperance 
in  regard  to  steamboat  journeys  acts  upon  the  un- 
accustomed like  strong  drink  and  they  were  all 
abnormally  stimulated  as  a  result  of  their  over- 
indulgence. 

William  thought  there  were  a  hundred  of  them, 
but  it  turned  out  later  that  there  were  but  twenty- 
five,  who  made  up  in  hilarity  what  they  lacked  in 
numbers.  As  he  watched  them  chattering  in  dis- 
orderly joy  together,  he  laughed  aloud  amidst  the 
racket  to  think  that  he  had  taken  this  trip  on 
account  of  the  peaceful  quiet  of  the  ocean. 

One  of  the  disciples,  filled  with  an  instinct  of 
friendliness  toward  the  whole  human  race,  sat 


DISASTER  295 

down  beside  him.  "There  are  going  to  be  great 
doings  on  this  boat  tonight,"  he  volunteered,  in 
a  condescending  way,  as  one  who  was  to  be  in 
the  thick  and  front  of  the  fray.  "There  will  be 
no  sleep  on  board,  I  can  promise  that." 

At  this  sweeping  and  thoroughly  gratuitous 
guarantee  of  insomnia  for  all,  William  concealed 
what  enthusiasm  he  might  have  felt. 

"Going  to  stage  a  cabaret  show*?"  he  asked, 
mildly. 

His  companion  appeared  puzzled.  "Just  sing- 
ing and  some  excellent  addresses,"  he  replied,  a 
little  uncertainly. 

"No  dancing1?" 

"Positively  no,  sir,"  replied  the  disciple, 
shocked. 

"I  think  you  are  making  a  mistake  there..  The 
people  naturally  expect  it." 

"Dancing,  sir,  is  part  of  the  machinery  of  the 
Evil  One.  It  brews  wrong  thoughts  and  leads 
on  toward  ruin." 

"I  have  thought  that  about  some  of  the  dances. 
But  it  doesn't  do  to  say  so,  you  know." 

"The  Disciples  of  Peace  are  fearless  in  what 
they  say.  Our  object  is  to  purify  the  world." 

"Well,"  responded  William  cautiously,  "that 
is  a  very  worthy  object." 


296          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

"My  dear  sir,  it  is  the  object  for  which  the 
Divine  One  put  us  upon  the  earth.  We  must 
not  shirk  our  duty." 

"It  is,  however,  a  large  undertaking." 
"That  is  why  we  propose  to  do  it.     We  do  not 
wish  to  deal  with  small  things." 

"But  wouldn't  such  an  undertaking  require 
some  preparation?" 

"None  but  the  helping  hand  of  the  Lord." 
William    eyed    the    disciple    curiously.     "Are 
you,"  he  asked,  presently,  "from  Virginia?" 
"I  am  from  Suffolk,  Virginia,  sir." 
"And  you  have  travelled  about  considerably?" 
The  other  moved  uneasily  in  his  chair.     "I  have 
been  to  Norfolk  and  Elizabeth  City  quite  fre- 
quently.    And  some  fifteen  years  ago  I  visited 
Richmond." 

The  young  man  said  no  more.  It  seemed  part 
of  the  droll  humor  of  fate  that  the  people,  usually, 
who  set  out  to  reform  the  world  are  those  who 
have  no  knowledge  of  it.  He  could  not  laugh, 
however,  at  this.  It  touched  him  too  closely — 
for  had  he  not  been  recently  judged  by  one  who 
did  not,  in  his  estimation,  understand. 

He  excused  himself  from  the  disciple  pres- 
ently and  went  out  upon  deck.  It  was  now  about 
time  for  the  steamer  to  be  heading  out  between 


DISASTER  297 

the  capes,  and  he  wished  to  see  the  last  of  the 
shore.  But  to  his  surprise  he  found  that  the  dull 
threatening  day  had  given  way  to  fog,  and  the 
steamer  was  feeling  her  way  slowly  along,  send- 
ing out  raucous  blasts  from  her  whistle  as  warning 
to  invisible  ships  behind  the  opaque  walls  of  mist. 
The  only  intimation  one  had  of  shore  was  the  roar 
of  the  unmusical  fog-horns  at  Cape  Henry,  sound- 
ing not  so  much  like  anything  as  Gabriel's  last 
trump,  calling  up  sinful  souls  for  judgment. 

The  diversion  of  watching  the  disappearing 
shore  having  been  denied  him,  after  taking  a  few 
turns  up  and  down  the  untenanted  deck  and  peer- 
ing about  on  all  sides  to  see  nothing  but  leaden 
sea  merging  without  line  or  break  into  leaden 
atmosphere  and  leaden  atmosphere  closing  about 
them  like  a  bell-jar  and  tantalizingly  shutting 
them  off  from  the  world  about  them,  he  re- 
entered  the  cabin  and,  noting  signs  and  sounds  of 
food  in  the  dining  room  below,  allowed  himself 
to  be  persuaded  that  dinner  was  the  only  remain- 
ing form  of  diversion. 

The  dining  room  was  full  of  disciples.  He 
looked  bewilderedly  about  him  as  he  came  down 
the  steps,  wondering  if  it  would  be  better  to  re- 
treat and  come  again  when  the  excursionists  had 
been  fed  or  whether  there  was  a  place  in  a  quiet 


298          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

corner  where  he  could  dine  in  peace.  In  the 
midst  of  this  dilemma  he  saw,  like  an  oasis  in 
the  midst  of  a  desert,  a  familiar  face — the  com- 
forting, pleasant  face  of  a  friend.  In  a  secluded 
part  of  the  room,  like  a  rose  blooming  in  the 
midst  of  necessary  and  essential  cabbages,  sat  Mrs. 
Carver.  She  rose  joyously  from  her  seat. 

"Thank  heaven,"  she  said,  "for  a  human  com- 
panion." 

She  explained  that  she  had  been  in  Richmond 
and  was  going  to  Boston  to  meet  her  husband. 
William  sat  beside  her  and  in  her  always  pleas- 
ant company  experienced  a  return  of  buoyant 
spirits. 

After  they  had  talked  a  long  while  and  the 
dishes  before  them  had  been  removed  and  the 
waiters  were  standing  impatiently  about  wishing 
them  gone,  he  explained  a  hypothetical  case  to 
her,  which  was  a  counterpart  of  his  own  deal  with 
the  Old  Dominion  Steel  Company  and  asked  her 
opinion  upon  its  merits.  Much  thinking  about 
it  had  made  him  wonder  if  his  view  could  possibly 
have  been  distorted  by  his  own  desire  that  it 
should  be  right. 

"Do  you  remember,"  she  asked  at  length,  ig- 
noring the  fact  that  this  was  supposed  to  be  a 
hypothetical  case,  "that  once,  a  long  while  ago, 


DISASTER  299 

I  told  you  Sara  Barclay  and  her  kind  would  drag 
you  down." 

He  gazed  at  her  in  astonishment. 

"You  have  had  to  make  money  to  keep  in  that 
stratum,"  she  went  on  ruthlessly,  "I  know  about 
that.  The  stratum  is  rotten,  and  the  tempta- 
tion is  to  consummate  rotten  transactions  in  or- 
der to  stand  upon  its  level." 

He  made  a  gesture  of  protest. 

"I  do  not  say  your  deal  is  rotten,"  she  asserted, 
"but  it  is — debatable.  It  is  the  sort  of  thing  the 
urge  of  the  desire  for  wealth  drives  a  man  to 
undertake." 

"You  overestimate  these  things — "  he  began. 

"Do  you  think,"  she  demanded,  "a  nation  whose 
foremost  class  is  selfish  and  prodigal  and  pleasure- 
loving  can  continue  to  be  a  great  and  aspiring  na- 
tion?' 

"I  think,"  he  asserted,  stoutly,  "there  is  still  an 
abundance  of  goodness  and  stability  and  earnest- 
ness in  the  country." 

"Of  course  there  is.  But  we  are  throwing  it 
away.  Why,  the  sturdy  and  thinking  part  of  our 
country  has  become  so  impressed  with  the  soft- 
ening effect  of  our  civilization,  that  thousands  of 
men,  rich  and  poor,  have  journeyed  up  to  a  little 
town  in  New  York  state  to  spend  their  vacations 


300          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

and  their  money  in  learning  a  little  soldiering — 
in  order  to  do  their  part  in  bringing  up  the  stand- 
ard of  the  country.  That  is  the  biggest  proof  that 
there  is  something  wrong." 

He  was  silent. 

"Your  deal,"  she  said,  "is  the  result  of  the 
same  influence.  The  result  of  easy  living,  easy 
spending,  easy  money-making.  You  are  not  go- 
ing to  see  it  now.  It  will  take  a  hard  jolt  to  open 
your  eyes." 

"I  'think  so.     I  certainly  do  not  see  it  now." 

They  left  the  dining  room  and  ascended  the 
stair  to  the  upper  deck.  Half  way  up  the  flight 
he  stopped.  "Into  what  state  of  mind  am  I  to 
be  jolted?" 

"Into  a  state  of  responsibility  to  the  man  on 
the  street.  Into  a  state  of  realizing  that  God  is 
a  power  that  protects  you  though  you  have  done 
nothing  to  deserve  it,  and  that  you  are  in  duty- 
bound  to  protect  others  even  when  you  think  they 
have  done  nothing  to  deserve  it." 

"That  is  copy-book  morality." 

"Perhaps,"  was  all  she  said. 

Later  on,  as  they  sat  unobserved  in  a  corner  of 
the  upper  saloon  watching  an  overwrought  prayer- 
meeting  of  the  disciples,  he  called  her  attention  to 
an  old  lady  in  the  crowd — a  placid,  sweet-faced, 


DISASTER  301 

credulous  old  lady.  It  seemed  that  no  evil 
thought  could  ever  have  crossed  the  threshold  of 
her  mind.  She  was  listening  with  rapt  attention 
to  the  speaker,  drinking  in  every  word  and  believ- 
ing that  his  references  to  golden  deeds  and  fellow- 
ship with  God  proved  him  a  doer  of  such  deeds 
and  one  who  had  some  mysterious  personal  under- 
standing with  the  Deity. 

"Can't  you  construct  her  character  complete  just 
from  looking  at  her4?"  William  asked.  "I  think 
there  are  such  in  Heaven.  But  she  is  not  a  doer 
— and  the  world  must  have  doers.  Her  goodness 
has  no  relation  to  life — for  her  circle  is  so  small. 
She  approaches  the  limit  represented  by  the  man 
chained  to  his  chair  for  life — she  can  do  no 
wrong.  But  a  man  active  in  the  world  and  press- 
ing the  world's  work  cannot  have  his  principles 
laid  down  for  him  by  the  onlookers  of  the  contest 
— however  sweet  and  unsoiled  those  onlookers 
may  be." 

"But  she  has  a  thing  called  faith,"  was  his  com- 
panion's comment. 

Presently  she  looked  at  him  inquisitively  as 
though  she  would  obtain  in  advance  the  answer  to 
the  question  she  was  about  to  ask. 

"Tell  me,"  she  said,  "what  brought  doubts  into 
your  mind  as  to  your  Old  Dominion  transaction?" 


302          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

"I  had  no  doubts." 

"But  you  consulted  me.  What  made  you  do 
that?" 

"I  don't  know." 

"Was  it  a  girl  ?"  she  shot  at  him. 

A  long  pause.  "Why,  yes,"  he  admitted,  at 
length,  "that  was  it.  It  was  a  girl." 

"Not  Sara  Barclay,  or  one  of  her — advanced 
type?" 

"No.     You  do  not  know  her. 

"She  is,"  he  added  after  a  thoughtful  pause, 
"not  of  the  advanced  type.  She  is  reactionary. 
She  belongs  to  a  former  generation." 

"Nothing  could  be  better,"  she  exclaimed,  un- 
expectedly. "The  former  generation  is  a  good 
influence.  My  husband  is  a  rock-ribbed  Puritan. 
He  has  an  ingrowing  conscience.  He  has  turned 
all  my  ideas  backward." 

"You  are  preaching  retrogression  ?" 

"We  ought  to  go  back  until  we  get  into  the 
period  where  people  are  aspiring  instead  of  satis- 
fied, and  where  they  accord  common  humdrum 
goodness  its  proper  consideration." 

"She  does  that,"  he  replied  absently. 

Mrs.  Carver  laughed.  "I  see  how  your  mind  is 
running." 

The  disciples  sang  psalms  and  hymns  and  made 


DISASTER  303 

addresses  and  launched  long  prayers,  which  hav- 
ing been  launched  and  having  included  all  avail- 
able objects  in  the  animal  and  vegetable  kingdom, 
the  weather,  the  crops,  the  government  of  the 
broad  land,  the  welfare  of  its  elected  officers,  the 
welfare  of  foreign  nations,  the  comfort  of  the  sick, 
the  health  of  babies  and  the  future  of  all  crim- 
inals, soon  obtained  a  momentum  that  was  diffi- 
cult to  stop,  and  the  prayer  carried  its  author  on 
and  on,  hoping  every  moment  for  inspiration  to 
stop  it — until  finally,  no  inspiration  appearing, 
he  simply  said  "Amen"  at  the  end  of  a  sentence, 
and  sat  down  dazed  and  worn  out,  like  Mazeppa 
at  the  end  of  his  wild  ride. 

Midnight  approached,  and  the  religious  enthusi- 
asm showed  no  sign  of  flagging.  At  length  a  fat, 
puffing  man,  clad  in  pink  pajamas,  his  hair  stand- 
ing up  on  end  from  hours  of  restless  turning  on  his 
pillow,  appeared  at  the  side  of  the  room — a  dis- 
turbing note  rendered  doubly  so  by  the  shocking 
impropriety  of  his  costume — and  shouted,  not  in 
the  soft  tones  of  politeness,  but  with  rough  un- 
couthness : 

"Say,  when  are  you  psalm-singers  going  to  let 
honest  people  sleep*?" 

Or  words  to  that  effect.  At  any  rate,  he  used 
the  words  "honest  people"  in  a  manner  offensively 


304          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

excluding  the  disciples  from  the  class  embraced  by 
that  appellation.  Which  was  unjust,  for  this  re- 
ligious gathering  were  honest  people  and  were 
spending  their  lives,  and  indeed,  holding  this  iden- 
tical service  of  song  and  prayer  in  the  interests  of 
making  the  world  more  honest.  The  admonition, 
therefore,  by  its  lack  of  truth,  lost  much  of  its 
force.  So,  while  the  ladies  modestly  averted  their 
faces  from  the  human  gold-fish  at  the  door,  the 
leading  disciple  rose  with  dignity  and,  without 
replying  to  the  objection  of  the  intruder,  said  that 
as  they  appeared  to  be  disturbing  others,  the  meet- 
ing would  come  to  a  close.  The  objector,  thus 
ignored,  retired  to  his  couch.  And  presently  quiet 
reigned. 

William  did  not  sleep  soundly.  The  deep  bay 
of  the  steamer's  whistle  continued  at  regular  inter- 
vals. When  he  was  awake  he  was  waiting  for  its 
roar.  When  he  was  asleep  it  wove  itself  into  his 
dreams.  At  length  when  dawn  came  and  the  bars 
of  light  that  entered  through  the  slatted  door 
burned  themselves  on  his  vision  so  that  he  saw 
them  even  after  he  closed  his  eyes,  he  rose,  dressed 
and  went  out  upon  the  deck. 

The  prospect  was  exactly  the  same  as  it  had 
been  the  night  before.  They  were  enclosed  still 
by  the  bell-jar  of  fog  which  seemed  to  resolve  it- 


DISASTER  305 

self  into  solid  structure.  As  he  passed  under  the 
windows  of  the  wheel  house,  he  gleaned  the  in- 
formation from  a  snatch  of  conversation  between 
the  man  at  the  wheel  and  the  first  officer  that 
there  had  been  an  unusual  electrical  disturbance 
which  had  affected  the  compass  and  made  their 
reckoning  uncertain.  They  had,  of  course,  been 
unable  to  pick  up  any  of  the  usual  lights  in  the 
fog  to  check  up  their  position. 

William  leaned  against  the  damp  rail  and 
watched  the  men  taking  the  sounding.  The  ship 
rolled  with  a  sickening  motion  as  it  crawled 
through  the  fog.  He  made  a  mental  prophecy 
that  there  would  be  only  a  small  proportion  of  the 
passengers  to  report  for  breakfast. 

The  heaving  of  the  lead  proceeded  under  ad- 
verse conditions.  The  fog  was  so  thick  that  it 
was  impossible  for  the  man  at  the  waist  to  see  the 
bow  of  the  vessel.  He  could  not  see  when  the 
man  forward  cast  the  lead,  and  on  that  account 
could  not  time  his  reading  of  the  line  with  the 
precision  that  was  necessary  for  a  correct  sound- 
ing. If  he  failed  to  catch  the  depth  just  as  the 
line  was  exactly  perpendicular,  the  sounding  was 
useless — or  rather,  it  was  dangerous,  for  it  gave  a 
greater  depth  than  actually  existed. 

As  there  was  nothing  else  to  divert  him,  Wil- 


306          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

liam  amused  himself  at  each  cast  of  the  lead,  by 
trying  to  decide  when  he  would  have  called  the 
line  perpendicular,  had  he  been  taking  the  read- 
ing. He  was  noted,  in  all  athletics,  for  his  quick- 
ness of  eye,  and  he  was  certain  that  the  man  was 
taking  all  his  readings  too  late.  He  glanced  at 
the  young  officer  who  had  charge  of  the  operation, 
to  see  if  he  was  observing  closely,  but  the  officer 
was  engrossed  in  his  note-book,  where  he  entered 
the  depths  as  the  sailor  called  them  out. 

"How  close  an  idea  do  these  soundings  give  you 
of  your  position  off-shore1?"  William  asked  him, 
at  a  convenient  moment. 

"Very  close  indeed,  sir,"  responded  the  officer, 
crisply.  "The  whole  of  the  Atlantic  coast  slopes 
off  at  the  rate  of  a  fathom  per  mile.  Thirty 
fathoms  of  water  means  thirty  miles  from  shore." 

As  the  dull,  gloomy  day  dragged  on,  William 
found  his  spirits  sinking  lower  and  lower.  The 
thick,  sticky  fog,  which  did  not  even  permit  him 
to  see  the  top  of  the  ship's  funnels,  the  regular 
baying  of  the  whistle  and  the  snail's  pace  of  the 
boat  through  the  water  bred  in  him  an  unaccus- 
tomed feeling  of  foreboding.  He  was  not  used  to 
premonitions  of  danger,  but  one  was  growing  upon 
him.  It  was  doubtless  due  to  his  recently  over- 
wrought condition  of  mind  that  this  premonition 


DISASTER  307 

had  come.  However,  he  could  not  release  himself 
from  a  feeling  of  annoying  disquiet.  Some  at- 
mospheric irregularity  had  interfered  with  the 
accuracy  of  their  compass  and  the  fog  had  inter- 
fered with  the  accuracy  of  their  soundings.  In 
his  usual  calm  and  tranquil  frame  of  mind,  he 
would  not  have  considered  these  things,  being  per- 
fectly willing  to  leave  the  navigating  of  the  ship 
to  the  persons  who  understood  such  things.  But 
just  now  he  was  in  a  despondent  mood. 

A  breeze  began  to  blow  about  noon,  but  the  fog 
did  not  lift.  William's  feeling  of  uneasiness  in- 
creased. He  did  not  understand  it  and  when  he 
spoke  of  it,  rather  deprecatingly,  to  Mrs.  Carver, 
she  laughed  good-humoredly. 

"A  little  thick  weather  does  not  worry  these  big 
steel  boats,  does  it1?"  she  asked. 

Not  ten  minutes  later  the  lie  was  given  to  those 
words.  He  was  drinking  a  glass  of  water  in 
the  smoking  room,  when  suddenly  the  glass  was 
dashed  out  of  his  hand  by  some  unseen  power 
and  fell  with  a  crash  against  the  wooden  wall. 
He  himself  was  projected  headlong  into  a  great 
leather  chair. 

Each  man  looked,  astonished,  at  his  neighbor. 
There  was  a  moment  of  stunned  quiet  all  over  the 
ship,  broken  only  by  the  violent  ringing  of  the 


3o8          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

engine  bell.  As  if  in  response  to  its  clang  a 
chorus  of  screams  rose  from  the  staterooms.  From 
every  door,  human  beings,  clad  in  various  unsuit- 
able garments,  peeped  or  rushed  out,  whiter  and 
more  frightened  than  the  nausea  of  the  morning 
could  have  made  them.  The  swelling  murmur  of 
voices  was  partially  drowned  out  by  the  throbbing 
again  of  the  engines.  The  churning  from  astern 
denoted  that  the  propellers  were  now  reversed. 
The  cause  of  the  seismic  disturbance  therefore  was 
that  the  vessel  was  aground. 

The  third  officer  and  the  purser  made  their  way 
diplomatically  among  the  passengers,  assuring 
them  that  there  was  no  danger.  The  vessel  was 
apparently  aground,  but  with  a  little  maneuver- 
ing, they  would  be  able  to  float  her  off  in  a  short 
time.  At  any  rate  the  sea  was  comparatively 
quiet,  and  the  fog  already  was  showing  signs  of 
lifting. 

It  has  since  been  held  that  the  Brocadillo  went 
aground  simply  on  account  of  the  sheer  perversity 
of  the  elements.  There  was  no  accounting  for  the 
electrical  disturbance,  which  was  greater  upon  that 
day  and  caused  more  variation  in  the  compass 
needle  than  at  any  time  during  the  previous 
twenty  years.  There  was  no  accounting,  except 
perhaps  by  the  fact  that  it  was  the  ebb  tide  of  the 


DISASTER  309 

full  moon,  for  the  strong  current  that  set  inshore. 
No  one  was  able  to  explain  even  why  the  sound- 
ings had  not  revealed  her  position.  To  this  day 
it  is  discussed  along  the  coast  without  solution — 
except  to  conclude  that  luck  was  against  her. 
This  theory  is  held  most  strongly  because  thirty 
minutes  after  she  grounded  the  fog  lifted,  and  at 
five-thirty  o'clock  all  on  board  had  a  fine  clear 
view  of  the  distant  shore. 

Passengers  began  to  come  out  upon  deck,  a  little 
more  securely  clad,  a  little  better  physically  from 
the  fact  that  the  steamer,  now  resting  on  firm 
ground,  no  longer  rose  and  fell  with  that  sickening 
rhythm,  and  a  little  happier  mentally  because  the 
fog  had  lifted.  It  was  not  much  more  than  two 
or  three  miles  to  shore,  and  they  laughed,  albeit 
still  somewhat  nervously,  at  their  first  fright  and 
confusion. 

At  six-thirty,  a  crew  from  the  coast  guard  sta- 
tion, who  had  put  out  immediately,  came  alongside 
in  their  self-bailing  surf-boat.  The  fog  had  then 
blown  away  entirely,  the  sea  was  calm,  and  there 
was  every  indication  of  fair  weather.  The  cap- 
tain held  a  conference  with  the  surfmen,  and  it 
was  soon  announced  that  he  had  refused  to  send 
the  passengers  ashore,  as  he  believed  there  was  no 
danger  and  he  was  therefore  not  empowered  to 


310          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

land  them  without  instructions  from  the  company. 
Some  second-class  mail,  however,  that  the  vessel 
was  carrying,  it  was  deemed  advisable  to  send 
ashore.  The  boat  pulled  away,  having  promised 
to  return  again  before  dark.  They  watched  it 
grow  smaller  in  the  distance  with  no  feeling  of 
regret. 

When  it  returned  again  at  eight  o'clock  the  full 
moon  was  shining.  The  captain  as  a  precaution, 
however,  asked  the  surfmen  to  hoist  their  boat 
aboard  and  stay  through  the  night.  This  made 
timid  minds  easier.  At  nine  o'clock  the  wrecking 
steamer  Iroquois  hove  in  sight  and  after  some  de- 
lay made  fast  to  the  Brocadillo  and  began  pulling 
on  her.  Everything  appeared  to  be  calm  and 
satisfactory.  The  passengers,  worn  out  with  loss 
of  sleep  and  seasickness,  went  to  their  staterooms 
and  were  soon  asleep.  All  was  quiet  and  peaceful 
on  the  moonlit  sea. 

But  about  twelve  o'clock  a  sudden  change  came 
over  the  night.  The  wind  veered  around  to  the 
north-east.  It  brought  with  it  presently  a  taste 
of  rain.  Over  the  horizon  across  the  stretch  of 
moonlit  water  rose  a  thin  black  wall  like  a  curtain 
of  smoke.  It  lay — a  huge  cigar — dividing  the 
water  from  the  starlit  sky.  Then  it  began  to  rise, 
blotting  out  the  stars,  a  dozen  at  a  time.  The 


DISASTER  311 

wind  freshened.  A  roller  of  water,  visible  for 
half  a  mile  over  the  bright  sea,  came  on  toward 
them  and  struck  the  ship  broadside  with  a  blow 
like  an  underground  explosion,  and  the  spray  flew 
high  over  the  wheelhouse. 

The  black  curtain  blotted  out  a  third  of  the 
eastern  sky.  It  was  like  an  eclipse  of  the  heavens. 
It  advanced  with  great  speed,  devouring  constella- 
tions as  it  moved  and  leaving  blank  desolation  be- 
hind it.  A  moment  and  the  moon  shone.  A 
moment  and  the  black  mantle  had  passed  before 
it,  leaving  the  sea  in  deep  darkness. 

The  wind  roared  across  the  decks.  More  roll- 
ers, invisible  now  in  the  night,  bombarded  the  iron 
hull.  The  main  deck  seethed  with  the  wash  of 
them  and  sometimes,  as  the  crest  passed  by,  the 
whole  vessel  except  the  cabins,  was  under  water. 
The  men  in  the  wheel-house  could  hear  the  splash 
of  the  steel  towing  hawser  as  it  dug  in  and  out  of 
the  wave. 

Sometimes  the  lights  of  the  wrecking  steamer 
were  lost  altogether.  When  she  could  be  made 
out  it  could  be  seen  that  she  was  struggling  against 
the  waves  that  struck  her  broadside  and  forced  her 
inshore.  The  screws  of  the  Brocadillo  continued 
to  revolve,  churning  the  water  astern. 

About  three  o'clock  William  was  awakened  by 


312  THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

the  banging  of  his  stateroom  door.  Seeing  that 
the  storm  had  risen,  he  dressed  hastily.  As  he 
stepped  from  his  room,  he  met  a  ship's  officer  on 
his  rounds  to  wake  the  passengers  and  get  them 
together  in  the  main  saloon.  He  took  the  life 
preserver  that  lay  in  the  rack  over  his  head. 

He  saw  dimly  the  lights  of  the  wrecking  steamer 
astern.  He  could  feel  the  Brocadillo  jar  under 
the  impact  of  each  wave,  and  it  seemed  as  if  she 
must  be  being  driven  further  aground  every  in- 
stant. The  ship's  officer,  returning,  touched  him 
on  the  arm  and  said  it  would  be  better  to  go  inside. 
Drenched  with  spray,  he  entered,  and  found  the 
cabin  full  of  dressed  and  half-dressed  passengers. 

The  roar  of  the  storm  without  was  incessant. 
The  ship  trembled  at  the  force  of  the  waves. 
Women  cried,  and  a  man  kneeling  down  on  the 
top  step  of  the  stairway  to  the  dining  saloon  began 
to  pray. 

This  seemed  fruitless  and,  slipping  unnoticed 
out  again  upon  the  promenade  deck,  William 
wrapped  his  arms  around  an  iron  stanchion  and 
watched  the  storm.  It  seemed  from  the  relative 
position  of  the  steamer  and  of  the  wrecking  craft, 
that  the  Brocadillo' s  stern  had  been  swinging 
around.  Out  of  the  night  he  saw  the  inclined 
side  of  a  mountain  of  water  coming  toward  them. 


DISASTER  313 

The  lights  of  the  saloon  windows  shone  in  squares 
for  a  moment  on  its  smooth  surface,  before  it 
burst  upon  them.  It  was  as  if  he  were  in  the 
midst  of  the  sea.  Spouting  water  enveloped  him. 
A  great  hand  grasped  the  keel  of  the  vessel  and, 
lifting  it  bodily,  set  it  down  again  with  a  jar  that 
broke  his  hold  and  threw  him  prone  upon  the  deck. 

When  he  rose  the  ship  was  full  of  escaping 
steam.  He  groped  about  for  the  rail  and  walked 
toward  the  wheel-house.  As  he  came  abreast  of 
the  stairs  to  the  house,  a  man  passed  him,  running, 
and,  bursting  into  the  wheel-house,  shouted  that 
the  stern  had  gone  aground  and  one  propeller  was 
disabled.  The  jar  had  disjointed  the  steam-pipes, 
and  the  engine  room  was  full  of  steam. 

"Then  call  the  Iroquois  on  the  wireless  and  tell 
him  to  go — while  the  going  is  good,"  said  the  cap- 
tain, by  way  of  reply. 

The  wireless  cracked  overhead.  After  a  time  it 
could  be  seen  that  the  wrecking  steamer  had  cast 
off  the  line  and  was  steaming  out  to  sea.  When 
her  lights,  growing  dimmer  and  dimmer  in  the  dis- 
tance, disappeared  at  length  behind  the  storm, 
they  were  left  alone  at  the  mercy  of  the  hurricane. 
It  seemed  inhuman  of  the  other  vessel  to  make  off 
to  safety,  but  it  was  apparent  that  she  could  have 
lent  no  assistance.  No  small  boat  could  have 


THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

remained  afloat  in  such  a  sea.  While  William 
stood  clinging  to  the  iron  supports,  the  coast  guard 
surf  boat  was  crushed  by  the  blow  of  a  wave  and 
torn  from  the  davits. 

The  waves  increased  in  violence,  and  soon  the 
upper  deck  became  untenable.  He  entered  the 
cabin,  humid  and  sweltering  with  escaped  steam. 
The  boat  had  listed  to  starboard  and,  as  each  wave 
passed,  a  rivulet  of  water  poured  under  the  doors 
on  the  port  side  and  washed  across  the  carpeted 
floor.  It  was  ridiculous  that  the  ashen-faced 
women,  believing  themselves  in  the  presence  of 
death,  should  yet  sit  with  their  feet  propped  up 
out  of  the  wet.  And  when  they  prayed  they 
made  islands  on  the  wet  carpet  with  their  life- 
preservers,  on  which  to  kneel.  Thus  are  the 
habits  of  a  lifetime  not  easily  broken. 

William  did  not  pray.  It  seemed  to  him  a  time 
for  action  rather  than  supplication.  When  the 
captain  sent  the  steward  below  to  secure  provi- 
sions from  the  galley,  he  asked  permission  to  go 
also.  The  galley  was  knee  deep  in  water,  which 
for  some  unknown  cause  seemed  to  be  rising  stead- 
ily. He  called  to  a  young  man,  who  was  standing 
at  the  head  of  the  stair,  smoking  one  cigarette 
after  another,  and  got  him  to  form  a  line  for  the 
purpose  of  passing  food  to  the  upper  saloon. 


DISASTER  315 

This  had  been  going  on  for  about  ten  minutes 
when  a  larger  and  stronger  wave  than  usual  fell 
upon  the  skylight  over  the  stair  and  made  a  clean 
breach  big  enough  to  drop  a  barrel  through.  A 
column  of  green  sea  dropped  through  the  hole,  as 
if  some  Brobdingnagian  faucet  had  been  turned 
upon  them.  Water  shot  in  all  directions.  The 
lower  saloon  and  dining  room  became  a  lake,  in 
which  the  tables,  still  set  with  their  white  clothes, 
stood  like  lily-pads,  or  were  submerged  alto- 
gether. 

The  line  became  impractical,  for  the  food  ar- 
riving at  its  destination  was  drenched  and  unfit 
for  use.  In  addition  to  this  the  lights  were  begin- 
ning to  burn  low.  The  line  was  broken  up  and 
the  men  returned  to  the  upper  saloon. 

There  was  nothing  then  to  do.  They  sat,  or 
simply  stood,  in  the  stolid  and  tired  silence  of 
people  waiting  at  a  station  for  a  train  long  over- 
due. When  one  of  them  spoke  the  others  turned 
to  listen — as  if  thinking  the  speaker  might  have 
noted  some  favorable  sign.  The  lights  burned 
dimmer  until  the  filaments  of  each  ceased  to  throw 
out  an  incandescent  glow  and  were  mere  red 
twisted  worms  within  the  glass.  At  almost  regu- 
lar intervals  a  shock  and  a  roar  like  the  passing 
of  a  train,  followed  by  the  turning  on  of  the  giant 


316  THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

faucet  overhead  announced  the  coming  and  going 
of  another  wave. 

Spade,  who  but  a  few  hours  before  had  affirmed 
his  belief  that  his  powers  were  all-sufficient  to 
combat  every  earthly  contingency,  found  himself 
in  a  few  hours  helpless  and  less  powerful  than  one 
of  the  drops  of  salt  spray  that  sprang  from  the 
breached  skylight.  Yesterday  he  trod  the  ground 
secure  in  his  youth  and  strength.  Today  he  saw 
the  boundary-line  of  eternity.  Humility  was  not 
in  his  nature — but  surprise  at  the  futility  of  his 
presence  and  prowess  stupefied  his  brain. 

At  length  the  red  twisted  worms  in  their  glass 
cocoons  disappeared  simultaneously,  leaving  the 
boat  in  a  darkness  that  was  absolute.  No  ray  of 
light  split  the  night  that  closed  about  them  all  like 
a  solid  substance.  Those  who  had  matches  found 
them  soaked  in  brine.  When  a  person  moved,  he 
stumbled  over  a  neighbor.  Therefore,  they  soon 
stopped  moving.  They  were  numbed — anesthet- 
ized. The  smell  of  the  escaping  steam  woke  no 
fear  in  them.  The  roar  of  the  intermittent  gey- 
ser from  the  skylight  above  stirred  no  emotion. 
They  waited — dully  and  with  unaccustomed  pa- 
tience. 

Somewhere  in  their  midst  but  giving  no  sense  of 
location  in  that  opaque  darkness,  rose,  above  the 


DISASTER  317 

tearing  of  the  wind  and  the  drum-like  roll  of  the 
water,  the  booming  voice  of  the  captain. 

"This  is  a  battle,"  he  said,  solemnly,  "between 
a  great  storm  and  a  strong  vessel.  It  is  a  ques- 
tion of  endurance.  We  must  put  our  trust  in  the 
Lord  God  of  Hosts." 

"Which  is  not  reassuring,"  muttered  Mrs.  Car- 
ver, with  unconscious  blasphemy. 


CHAPTER  XXIV 

COPY-BOOK    MORALITY 

Through  the  window  William  watched  the 
coming  of  the  dawn.  It  was  eagerly  awaited  by 
every  soul  in  the  cabin,  though  the  dawn  itself 
meant  neither  peace  nor  safety.  But  it  would 
break  through  that  stifling  darkness  that  made 
them  all  so  many  blind  people  who  had  lost  all 
sense  of  direction  and  distance  in  that  unaccus- 
tomed space. 

At  length,  without  their  being  aware  when  the 
change  occurred,  they  found  themselves  suddenly 
able  each  to  distinguish  the  shadowy  form  of  his 
neighbor.  When  he  regained  his  bearings  Wil- 
liam made  his  way  to  the  window  and  looked  out. 
There  was  no  rift  in  the  sky.  The  blackness  of 
night  had  simply  turned  to  a  sickly  gray.  From 
a  forward  window  he  was  able,  as  the  light  grew 
stronger,  to  see  long  mountains  of  water  charging 
in  upon  them.  The  crest  of  each  wave  he  saw  in 
the  distance,  separating  itself  from  leaden  drab  of 
rain  and  sea.  Majestically  it  moved  with  no  ap- 

318 


COPY-BOOK  MORALITY          319 

pearance  of  haste — a  regular  and  smoothly  sur- 
faced mound  of  water  as  high  as  the  third  story 
of  a  house.  As  peaceful  and  gentle  in  appear- 
ance as  the  grass  grown  slope  of  a  meadow  it  was, 
until  with  a  reverberating  boom  it  broke  its 
smooth  surface  against  the  bow,  sending  geysers 
spurting  high  above  its  crest  and  rushing  headlong 
down  the  length  of  the  steamer,  obliterating  all 
but  the  upper  cabin  in  a  sea  of  foam. 

It  was  high  tide  again  now  and  the  stern  of  the 
vessel  appeared  to  have  floated  off.  Her  nose 
still  remained  hard  and  fast  aground,  and  William 
could  feel  the  boat  turning  so  that  the  waves 
began  to  strike  her  abeam.  She  rocked  and 
shook  under  the  bombardment.  Even  to  his  inex- 
perienced mind  it  was  plain  that  no  ship  could 
stand  this  sort  of  treatment  for  any  great  length  of 
time. 

He  found  the  members  of  the  crew  putting 
on  oilskins  and  sou'westers  and  rubber  boots,  indi- 
cating that  something  was  afoot.  He  had  noticed 
the  night  before  in  their  reconnaissance  on  the 
lower  deck  that  in  one  of  the  staterooms  of  the 
after  saloon  was  just  such  an  outfit.  Slipping 
away  unnoticed  he  waded  through  the  dining  hall 
and,  after  several  wrong  entries,  found  the  room 
he  wanted,  with  the  coat,  hat  and  boots  stuffed 


320          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

into  a  recess  originally  meant  for  life  preservers. 

When  William  returned  to  the  upper  saloon  at- 
tired in  this  costume,  he  was  soon  lost  among  the 
members  of  the  crew.  And,  when  they  leaped  out 
one  at  a  time  through  the  quickly  opened  and  shut 
door,  he  leaped  out  too  in  his  turn. 

It  was  no  pleasant  promenade  on  that  deck. 
A  man  did  not  dare  for  one  instant  to  loose  his 
hold  upon  some  firm  object.  The  never-ceasing 
gale  that  struck  him  in  the  back  like  the  body  of 
a  man  thrown  against  him,  the  almost  blinding 
rain  and  now  and  again  the  mountain  of  water 
that  rolled  by  them  and  through  them,  made 
merely  keeping  one's  footing  a  matter  of  great 
skill.  He  wondered  how  they  would  be  able  to 
accomplish  anything. 

But  they  did.  In  moments  of  necessity  they 
trusted  to  luck  for  their  footing  and  pulled  on  the 
rope  in  their  hands  to  move  the  great  anchor  be- 
fore the  next  wave  should  come.  He  found  him- 
self forgetting  the  oncoming  wave  in  the  excite- 
ment of  giving  one  more  heave.  Each  one  of 
these  anchors  weighed  three  thousand  pounds. 
But  they  got  them  into  position  and  let  them  go 
into  the  sea,  each  with  sixty  fathoms  of  steel  chain 
attached.  One  of  these  was  let  go  first  to  port 
and,  when  the  ship  swung  around,  another  was 


COPY-BOOK  MORALITY         321 

let  go  to  starboard.  William,  landsman  that  he 
was,  did  not  at  first  see  the  strategy  of  these  an- 
chors. But  by  hauling  in  upon  one  or  the  other 
chain  they  were  able  to  keep  the  ship's  head  to  the 
wind  and  thus  give  her  as  much  chance  as  possi- 
ble against  the  sea. 

However,  she  was  already  badly  sprung  and 
was  leaking  fast.  The  engine  room,  having  taken 
water  that  came  in  through  the  open  skylight  as 
well  as  from  the  opened  plates  of  the  keel,  was 
flooded.  When  they  went  into  the  wheel  house 
after  their  efforts  with  the  anchors,  they  could 
hear  through  the  engine-room  speaking  tube  the 
bell  below  ringing  dismally  with  the  roll  of  the 
ship. 

They  could  make  out  with  the  glasses  the  coast 
guard  station  on  the  beach,  and  as  there  was  now 
no  power  for  the  wireless,  the  captain  got  his  sig- 
nal flags  out  of  the  locker  and  ran  up  a  message  on 
the  main  truck.  After  some  time  an  answering 
string  of  flags  appeared  ashore.  Translated  it 
read,  "We  cannot  get  to  you.  The  country  prays 
for  you." 

They  realized  then  that  millions  ashore  had 
read  about  them  at  their  breakfast  tables.  "The 
country  prays  for  you."  A  bitter  phrase  indeed. 
"God  bless  you"  thrown  at  a  starving  beggar. 


322          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

Spade  had  never  before  given  Death  serious 
thought.  Life  had  been  the  problem  that  had 
confronted  him.  He  had  never  been  in  a  position 
where  the  termination  of  his  existence  seemed  im- 
minent. At  first  he  had  looked  upon  the  ship- 
wreck calmly.  When  the  others  had  rushed 
about  wringing  their  hands  and  praying,  he  re- 
mained cool,  with  the  sporting  air  of  a  fatalist. 
If  the  ship  must  sink,  it  would  sink,  and  it  helped 
none  to  lament  about  it. 

That  was  twelve  hours  ago.  If  it  had  sunk 
then  he  would  have  died  with  unruffled  mind — 
with  a  physical  courage  that  might  have  been 
called  superb,  but  with  no  thought  of  his  soul. 
But  as  the  storm  continued  unabated  and  the  end, 
while  every  moment  becoming  more  and  more 
certain,  still  did  not  come,  he  began  to  have  a 
wild  desire  that  it  would  come  and  not  hold  him 
in  suspense. 

Little  by  little,  there  being  now  nothing  at  all 
to  do,  his  mind  pushed  every  other  matter  from 
it.  He  could  think  of  nothing  but  the  breaking 
up  of  the  ship  and  the  swallowing  of  all  those  peo- 
ple in  the  sea.  He  looked  out  across  the  waves 
and  wondered  how  long  he  could  stay  afloat  in 
that  turmoil  of  water. 

He  was  overwhelmed,  stunned,  stupefied  by  the 


COPY-BOOK  MORALITY          323 

gigantic  power  against  which  he  was  struggling. 
He  had  always  admitted  the  force  of  the  elements 
as  a  thing  to  be  expected — as  part  of  the  structure 
of  the  world.  Expanse  of  water,  which  he  sailed 
upon  in  a  steel  boat,  violence  of  storm,  from 
which  he  had  been  protected  by  masonry  walls, 
cold,  heat,  lightning,  from  which  he  had  also  been 
protected  by  human  ingenuity,  were  not  things 
that  in  the  past  had  proved  to  him  the  existence 
of  a  Divine  Power.  But  now,  at  a  point  where 
the  power  of  man  had  so  evidently  broken  down, 
realizing  that  his  strength  of  body  or  mind  was 
quite  too  small  to  be  considered  in  the  presence  of 
the  gigantic  forces  against  him,  he  would  have 
been  lacking  in  mentality  indeed  had  he  not  seen 
in  it  and  admitted  the  hand  of  a  God  who  con- 
trolled his  puny  life  and  to  whom,  therefore,  he 
must  'be  accountable. 

He  reentered  the  cabin  and  saw  the  people 
again  kneeling  in  prayer,  led  by  the  disciple  who 
had  the  day  before  talked  to  him.  He  felt  no 
contempt  for  the  old  man.  Instead  he  found  him- 
self sympathizing  with  the  idea  of  prayer.  It 
was  the  process  of  admitting  human  inability  to 
cope  with  the  situation  at  hand.  He  admitted 
that  inability  in  him.  But  he  did  not  pray.  He 
felt  that  he  had  no  right  to  pray — he  who  had 


324          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

not  believed  in  it,  who  had  at  all  previous  times, 
when  prayer  had  not  been  necessary  for  his  safety 
and  welfare,  ignored  it;  what  right  had  he  to 
seize  it  now?  It  was  taking  something  that  did 
not  belong  to  him. 

His  instinct  was  to  follow  a  sort  of  inverted 
golden  rule — to  do  unto  himself  as  he  had  done 
to  others.  Since  he  himself  had  not  accorded  len- 
ient treatment  to  others  (and  had,  not  long  since, 
defended  such  a  course  strongly)  he  would  not 
now  ask  for  lenient  treatment  for  himself.  In 
his  warped  yet  altogether  earnest  view  of  the 
situation,  his  worst  fear  was  lest  he  should  be  a 
hypocrite.  He  felt  that  he  had  erected  a  barrier 
between  himself  and  God  which  he  was  not  enti- 
tled to  attempt  to  remove. 

There  was  a  touch  of  self-castigation  in  this 
that  was  Puritanical.  It  was  plain  that  the  ele- 
ments were  slowly  but  surely  battering  the  iron 
shell  in  which  they  huddled  out  of  its  shape,  until 
presently  it  would  not  be  a  boat  at  all  but  a  hope- 
less wreckage  over  which  the  waves  would  wash 
clean  and  between  whose  decks  no  humans  could 
be  alive.  Death  itself  faced  them  and  he  pun- 
ished his  immortal  soul  by  not  permitting  it  to  ask 
for  succor  or  to  commend  itself  to  Heaven. 
All  the  day  they  sat  cooped  up  in  the  vessel  like 


COPY-BOOK  MORALITY          325 

rabbits  in  a  warren.  The  dull  dark  day,  the  hot 
stifling  cabin,  seemed  to  take  from  them  the  power 
to  think  and  to  be  rational  beings.  The  wringing 
of  hands  and  weeping  that  had  gone  on  at  first, 
would,  under  these  conditions,  soon  have  driven 
every  sane  thought  from  the  minds  of  them  all, 
had  it  not  been  that  Mrs.  Carver  got  them  inter- 
ested in  the  preparation  and  serving  of  the  scanty 
meals  which  they  were  able  to  cook  on  an  oil  stove 
that  had  been  rescued  from  the  salt  water.  This 
kept  them  occupied,  and,  to  a  certain  extent,  di- 
verted. 

Their  greatest  enemy  -was  thirst.  The  warp- 
ing of  the  ship's  hull  had  broken  her  water  pipes 
and  filled  the  whole  system  with  brine.  A  little 
bit  of  spring  water — a  carboy  half  full — had  been 
rescued  from  the  galley  together  with  the  food. 
The  steward  had  vouchsafed  the  most  helpful  in- 
formation that  there  was  more  of  it  in  the  forward 
hold,  now  completely  submerged.  A  few  adven- 
turous spirits  had  earlier  in  the  day  made  a  trip, 
which  was  in  the  nature  of  deep-sea  diving,  to  the 
ship's  bar  and  brought  back  several  dozen  bottles. 
Of  these  the  captain  promptly  confiscated  the  in- 
toxicants and  left  for  distribution  a  number  of 
bottles  of  mineral  water  and  ginger  ale.  These  in 
turn  were  confiscated  by  the  steward,  together 


326          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

with  the  bottle  of  spring  water,  and  their  contents 
dealt  out  with  mathematical  exactness — first  in 
the  morning,  again  at  noon,  and  later  at  six  o'clock 
in  the  evening — a  tablespoonful  to  each  person 
each  time. 

The  torrid,  breathless  atmosphere  of  the  cabin 
induced  unusual  thirst  and  made  this  allowance 
painfully  inadequate.  Men  and  women  went 
about  with  the  perspiration  streaming  down  their 
faces  as  if  they  had  been  engaged  in  hard  labor. 
They  tried  to  alleviate  the  situation  by  opening  a 
window,  but  this  resulted  in  the  entrance  of  not 
very  much  air  and  quite  too  much  water — water 
of  which  they  could  not  taste  a  drop.  Thirst  in- 
creased as  the  day  wore  on,  and  by  nightfall  they 
spoke  to  each  other  in  husky  voices  that  resulted 
from  parched  throats  and  dry  lips. 

They  were  a  silent  band — patient  with  the 
awed,  powerless  patience  of  a  drove  of  sheep  im- 
mured in  a  slatted  car  and  doomed  by  the  red 
stripe  on  their  backs.  In  the  corner  of  the  cabin 
sat  motionless,  hour  after  hour,  a  swarthy,  black- 
haired  Greek,  a  heavily  reinforced  bag  such  as 
bank-runners  use  clasped  between  his  feet  as  in  a 
vise,  his  body  performing  the  human  functions  of 
breathing  and  of  eating  and  drinking,  when  food 
and  drink  were  brought  to  him,  but  being  other- 


COPY-BOOK  MORALITY          327 

wise  as  inanimate  and  almost  as  immovable  as 
the  wooden  pillar  beside  his  chair.  The  bag  was 
full  of  coins,  actual  gold  and  silver  coins,  which 
made  a  rich  sound  when  the  bag  was  moved — the 
proceeds  from  the  sale  of  his  business.  They 
represented  the  accumulation  of  a  lifetime,  and 
one  could  see  in  his  dull,  stupid  eyes  that  he  felt 
that  his  life  and  the  money  went  together — 
whether  to  safety  or  into  the  sea. 

A  few  feet  from  him,  neither  weeping  when  the 
others  wept,  nor  screaming  when  they  screamed, 
nor  talking  when  they  talked,  sat  the  placid-faced 
old  lady  he  had  spoken  of  the  first  night  on  the 
boat,  as  being  good  because  her  sheltered  life  had 
shown  her  no  evil.  But  it  was  now  proved  that 
the  sheltered  life  had  taught  her  a  trusting  cour- 
age that  was  miraculous.  It  was  childlike  and 
unthinking,  but  it  was  inspiring  in  that  it  was 
evident  that  she  had  said,  "I  am  in  the  hands  of 
the  Lord" — and  believed  it!  William  learned 
more  of  the  subtle  nature  of  his  relation  to  his 
Maker  from  this  unthinking  yet  certain  old  soul 
than  it  had  ever  been  given  him  before  to  know. 

"That,"  he  said,  hoarsely,  to  Mrs.  Carver,  the 
vibration  of  his  voice  rasping  his  parched  throat, 
"is  the  quality  I  have  not  yet  understood.  It 
seems  to  be  a  realization  of  reciprocity  with  God." 


328          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

She  nodded,  but  did  not  reply. 

"She  seems  to  feel  that  if  she  has  been  consid- 
erate and  kind  to  the  people  about  her — and 
heaven  knows  she  could  not  have  been  otherwise, 
possessing  that  face — God  will  be  considerate  and 
kind  to  her." 

"That  is  copy-book  morality,"  she  said,  smiling. 

"That  may  be  what  I  need,"  he  replied. 

About  six  o'clock,  after  the  tablespoonful  of 
water  had  driven  him  to  a  fury  of  thirst,  William, 
seized  with  a  certain  idea,  took  with  him  a  coast 
guard  man  and  plunged  out  into  the  storm.  The 
other  had  only  a  vague  notion  of  what  was  to  hap- 
pen, but  followed  anyway.  The  hills  of  lead- 
gray  water,  from  some  inexhaustible  source,  still 
rolled  in  upon  them  with  unceasing  regularity. 
The  wind  drove  welcome  cold  rain  into  their  faces. 
They  grasped  nearby  stanchions  to  let  the  first 
huge  wave  go  by.  As  the  crest  passed  they  stood 
to  their  knees  in  the  broad  Atlantic  with  nothing 
but  sea  before  and  to  each  side  of  them  for  miles 
and  a  few  yards  high  of  deckhouse  behind  them. 
Part  of  the  wave  broke  high  over  the  cabins,  wet- 
ting the  red  top  of  the  ship's  funnel,  coming  awash 
like  a  river  down  the  length  of  the  cabin  roof  and 
then  pouring  in  smooth  sheets  over  its  edge. 

As  soon  as  all  these  manifestations  were  over 


COPY-BOOK  MORALITY          329 

and  before  the  next  oncoming  bank  of  water 
struck,  they  sprang  to  the  warped  and  twisted  iron 
ladder  and  clambered  to  the  hurricane  deck  above. 
And  there  upon  a  vertical  iron  surface,  sheltered 
from  the  salt  waves,  upon  which  the  driving  rain 
beat  and  ran  down,  they  drank  their  fill  of  fresh 
water,  licking  it  like  kittens  from  the  surface. 
And  never  had  a  drink  been  so  grateful. 

Thus  refreshed,  they  stood  in  the  rain  and  the 
flying  spray,  bracing  themselves  against  the  solid 
onslaught  of  the  wind — contented.  As  they 
looked  at  the  dim,  low-lying  shore,  with  a  sugges- 
tion of  a  wide  inlet  to  southward  beyond  a  needle 
of  land,  something  strangely  familiar  about  the 
place  impressed  itself  upon  him.  For  the  first 
time,  amid  the  confusion  of  their  condition,  he 
asked  the  name  of  the  shore. 

"Bound  Beach,"  replied  the  surfman,  unexpect- 
edly. 

Bound  Beach!  What  curious  trick  of  Provi- 
dence it  was  to  place  him  here  near  that  shore — 
where  he  had  first  seen  the  woman  he  loved — 
where  his  life  seemed  to  have  begun,  and  in  sight 
of  which  it  might  now  end. 


CHAPTER  XXV 

DECISION 

Ashore  the  newspapers  were  black  with  head- 
lines announcing  the  plight  of  the  Erocadillo. 
It  was  seized  upon  as  a  topic  of  nation-wide  im- 
portance— not  that  it  concerned  the  wide  nation; 
but  that  the  nation  insisted  upon  all  cases  of  mur- 
der and  sudden  death  being  brought  to  its  atten- 
tion, with  all  the  minor  details.  The  populace  at 
large  is  shocked  and  grieved  at  the  news  of  disaster 
and  their  hearts  are  filled  with  grief  and  sympa- 
thy; but  the  harboring  of  these  large  and  higher 
emotions  gives  a  feeling  of  uplift  and  satisfaction. 
They  sit  aghast  at  the  mention  of  horrors,  but  the 
horrors  have  a  fascination  for  them  that  makes 
them  eager  for  more  news  of  them. 

The  newspapers,  therefore,  saw  to  it  that  the 
public  was  supplied  with  the  necessary  facts  and 
the  usual  word-painting  to  enable  them  to  visual- 
ize the  scene.  The  morning  papers  on  the  day 
after  the  running  aground  were  the  first  to  make 
mention  of  the  event.  A  boy  left  one  of  these  at 

330 


DECISION  331 

the  office  of  William  Spade,  not  suspecting  that 
the  important  announcement  therein  contained 
had  no  power  to  surprise  him  even  if  it  could  have 
been  put  in  his  hands. 

But  it  had  power  to  surprise  the  girl  who  sat  at 
the  desk  in  William  Spade's  office.  She  glanced 
at  it  indifferently  from  a  distance  as  it  lay  upon 
the  table,  and  forgot  about  it.  Her  mind  was 
untranquil  and  disturbed  and  her  interest  in  the 
usual  routine  of  life  was  dulled.  For  the  past 
few  days  she  had  merely  been  going  through  the 
motions  of  living,  without  taking  an  interest  in 
the  process.  One  newspaper  more  or  less  meant 
no  more  than  one  breath  more  or  less. 

But  the  newspaper  lay  there.  And  as  it  lay  it 
seemed  to  take  on  an  air  of  quiet  persistence,  as 
though  it  would  have  said,  "I  have  the  message. 
I  propose  to  wait  until  I  have  an  opportunity  to 
deliver  it." 

Such  determination  could  not  but  be  successful. 
The  girl  rose  presently,  as  if  under  the  hypnotic 
influence  of  the  inanimate  sheet,  and,  going  to  the 
table,  spread  the  paper  out  flat  upon  it.  She  read 
several  things  before  she  saw  the  account  of  the 
shipwreck,  and  she  read  several  paragraphs  of  that 
before  she  realized  that  it  contained  anything  of 
importance  for  her. 


332          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

In  the  middle  of  a  sentence  she  became  aware 
suddenly  that  she  was  reading  her  own  history. 
Or,  at  least,  when  she  felt  that  first  tight  clutch 
at  her  heart,  it  seemed  as  though  it  concerned  her 
more  than  it  concerned  anyone  else — even  those 
aboard  the  foundering  ship. 

That  was  her  first  thought.  Her  second  was 
that  it  was  of  no  importance  to  her.  This  was 
not  really  a  thought — it  was  a  speech.  She  said 
it  several  times  to  herself,  and  it  was  altogether 
logical  and  reasonable.  She  seemed  to  feel  that  it 
was  reason  enough  for  her  to  go  on  and,  dispas- 
sionately, read  the  rest  of  the  column  of  type  be- 
fore her.  And  yet  she  did  not  read  it  dispassion- 
ately. She  read  it  in  blocks,  a  paragraph  at  a 
time,  as  if  attempting  to  get  all  the  facts  there 
expressed  with  one  sweep  of  her  eye  down  the 
page. 

At  the  end  of  the  column  in  the  list  of  pas- 
sengers, she  read  "William  Spade,  Washington, 
D.  C."  Her  eye  remained  fixed  upon  the  line 
until  the  name  became  not  a  name  at  all,  but  a 
mere  curious  arrangement  of  letters,  and  her  mind 
had  wandered  afar  off  from  the  printed  page. 

It  seemed  after  long  consideration  that  that 
name  was  the  symbol  to  her  for  happiness.  She 
rebelled — and  had  been  rebelling  now  for  many  a 


DECISION  333 

long  hour — against  admitting  that  her  life  had 
entwined  itself  around  his,  like  the  tendrils  of  a 
rose  about  a  sturdy  trellis,  and,  having  been  en- 
twined, could  never,  except  by  tearing  the  vine, 
be  disengaged.  But  to  rebel  was  merely  futile, 
and  the  proof  of  the  fact  was  the  physical  pain  she 
suffered — as  she  attempted  to  disengage  and  for- 
ever separate  the  life  of  Ruth  Dunbar  from  the 
life  of  William  Spade. 

<  Sometimes  she  encouraged  herself  to  think  that 
this  joining  together  of  their  souls,  being  wholly 
involuntary  as  far  as  she  was  concerned,  must 
have  been  arranged  and  provided  for  by  Provi- 
dence. Eagerly  she  strove  to  believe  that  loving 
the  man  must  have  been  the  result  of  an  act  of 
God;  only  to  have  her  conscience  drive  the  com- 
forting thought  from  her  and  convince  her  that 
loving  him  was  merely  a  temptation  to  try  her 
soul.  And  she  strove  to  prove  that  her  soul  was 
strong. 

Bravely,  therefore,  she  urged  herself  to  the  in- 
human and  preposterous  attitude  of  indifference 
to  the  danger  of  the  man  who  was  the  whole 
world  to  her.  Indifference  was  the  most  unthink- 
able thing  to  her  fevered  mind  and  the  simulating 
of  it  exquisite  cruelty.  It  was  therefore  a  pa- 
thetically humorous  comedy  that  she  enacted  for 


334          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

her  own  benefit.  With  a  studied  and  unnatural 
air  of  calm,  she  went  about  her  routine  business, 
laboriously  and  painstakingly  endeavoring  to  de- 
ceive— herself  only.  Her  wrought-up  mind  did 
not  see  the  drollery  of  this  performance  of  leger- 
demain in  which  the  audience  was  fully  cognizant 
of  all  the  subterfuges  employed,  and  yet  the  pres- 
tidigitator, unsuccessful,  still  continued  to  per- 
form. Until  at  length,  she  hurried  home,  hoping 
that  the  companionship  of  her  family  would  make 
her  attempt  at  calmness  of  mind  more  successful 
and  convincing  to  herself. 

She  thought  at  first  that  in  the  cool  quiet  of  the 
partly  darkened  house  she  would  find  the  calm  she 
wanted.  But  not  for  long.  The  world  seemed 
to  be  vibrating  with  the  news  of  the  occurrence 
that  was  troubling  her  spirit.  Her  young  brother 
returned  home  from  the  bank  where  he  was  em- 
ployed, bubbling  over  with  conversation  concern- 
ing it.  He  dropped  a  kiss  upon  his  mother's 
brow  and  an  extra  edition  of  the  evening  paper 
into  her  lap  with  one  motion. 

"Big  wrec£  up  on  the  Jersey  coast,"  he  said,  as 
one  whose  breadth  of  mind  calls  upon  him  to  take 
an  interest  in  all  current  events.  "Bottom  flew 
up  and  hit  a  coastwise  steamer.  Been  there 


DECISION  335 

twenty-four  hours  already  and  storm  is  increasing. 
On  account  of  the  high  sea,  the  coast  guard  have 
forbidden  anyone  to  put  out  to  the  rescue.  Fine 
way  to  treat  fellow  human  beings,  what?" 

He  disappeared  into  his  room  for  a  moment  to 
drape  his  uncreased  coat  upon  its  appointed 
hanger,  and,  returning,  exuded,  with  a  certain 
youthful  nonchalance,  righteous  indignation. 

"If  I  were  down  there  in  sight  of  the  ship,  do 
you  suppose  any  coast  guard  could  prevent  me 
from  at  least  attempting  to  go  out  to  her*?  Do 
you  suppose  I  could  stand  by  and  see  fellow  hu- 
man beings" — the  phrase  pleased  him — "go  down 
to  death  before  my  very  eyes?" 

Ruth's  breath  came  and  went  rapidly  as  this 
discussion  proceeded.  She  bowed  her  head  so 
that  they  might  not  know  how  eagerly  she  was 
following  it. 

"Foolhardiness  is  not  bravery,"  Mrs.  Dunbar 
asserted  mildly,  picking  the  flaw  in  her  son's  ex- 
cited reasoning. 

"Neither  is  smug  cautiousness.  Read  the  mes- 
sage they  sent  the  ship.  'The  country  prays  for 
you.'  In  case  of  emergency  people  nowadays," 
with  the  air  of  a  man  who  had  lived  down  through 
the  ages,  "offer  a  prayer  or  contribute  fifty  cents 


336          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

and  feel  their  responsibility  ends.  I'll  bet  old 
man  Starkwether  will  go  out  to  them  if  he  can 
get  anyone  to  go  with  him." 

Ruth's  hands  gripped  the  arms  of  her  chair  and 
she  looked  up  at  her  brother  with  a  strange  light  in 
her  eyes — almost  of  one  who  has  seen  a  vision. 

"Oh,"  exclaimed  the  boy,  suddenly,  wholly  as 
an  afterthought,  "there  is  a  William  Spade,  of 
Washington,  among  the  passengers.  That 
couldn't  be  your  William  Spade,  could  it*?" 

She  did  not  move  her  eyes  from  his.  "Yes," 
she  replied,  steadily.  "That  is — my  William 
Spade." 

Her  mother  was  looking  at  her  strangely.  The 
labored  steadiness  did  not  deceive  her.  Pity  and 
concern  and  a  new  understanding  came  to  her 
mind.  But  if  tears  were  in  her  mother's  heart, 
she  kept  them  from  her  eyes,  and  if  words  hurried 
to  her  tongue  she  did  not  speak  them. 

Long  hours  that  night  she  lay  awake  listening 
to  the  signs  that  spoke  of  wakefulness  in  her 
daughter's  adjacent  room.  She  wished  to  go  to 
her  and  comfort  her,  as  was  her  right,  but  the 
sanctity  of  the  secret  she  had  discovered  loomed 
higher  than  even  the  ever-present  instinct  of  moth- 
erly protection.  At  midnight,  as  the  cacophonous 
voices  of  the  newsboys  calling  extra  papers  dis- 


DECISION 


337 


turbed  the  quiet  of  the  street,  she  heard  Ruth  rise 
hastily  from  her  bed. 

But  even  she  could  not  picture  fully  the  chill  of 
fear  that  seized  the  girl,  as  drawing  on  her  kimono, 
she  stole  barefooted  and  silent  to  the  front  door  of 
the  house,  eager  yet  overwhelmingly  afraid,  to 
hear  the  news  that  might  be  there  for  sale.  But  it 
was  relief  that  shone  in  her  eyes  as  she  saw  at  once 
by  the  heavy  type  that  it  was  not  of  the  end  of  the 
ship  that  the  paper  had  to  tell.  She  stood  anx- 
iously upon  the  steps,  reading  by  the  light  from 
the  street  lamp. 

The  purpose  of  the  paper  was  to  announce  that 
the  wrecking  craft  which  had  been  trying  to  pull 
the  Brocadillo  off  the  bar  had  returned  to  port 
with  the  information  that  the  steamer  was  in  a 
critical  position.  It  was  rather  a  footless  and  in- 
consequential announcement,  disseminating  infor- 
mation in  another  form  that  was  already  known. 
But  the  report,  discouraging  as  it  was  upon  the 
face  of  it,  was  almost  good  news — for  the  fact 
that  it  had  not  been  the  announcement  of  disaster 
was  a  reprieve — a  stimulus  for  hope. 

More  hours  she  lay  sleepless  upon  her  bed. 
This  enforced  communion  with  herself  shattered 
beyond  repair  the  carefully  builded  fiction  that  she 
was  no  longer  held  to  him  by  any  bond.  On  the 


338          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

contrary  she  was  eager  now,  when  it  appeared 
inevitable  that  she  would  not  see  him  again,  to 
believe  that  a  bond  did  hold  her  to  him.  If  he 
should  go  down  into  the  sea  and  be  forever  lost  to 
her,  she  would  want  to  believe  that  she  had  be- 
longed to  him. 

She  was  sorry  that  she  had  not  allowed  him  to 
hold  her  in  his  arms,  to  say  and  know  that  she 
was  his.  She  had  a  feeling  that  if  they  could 
have  both  believed  that  she  loved  him  it  would 
have  made  the  bond  between  them  that  did  not 
now  exist.  And,  morbid  and  tiny  satisfaction 
that  this  would  have  been,  it  was  a  source  of  bit- 
terness to  know  that  it  was  denied  her. 

In  the  morning  she  went  to  her  office  as  usual — 
a  little  worn  and  tired  from  the  night  of  disputa- 
tion with  her  soul,  but  more  disturbed  by  fears  of 
the  future  than  by  present  weariness.  The  im- 
personal jealousy  she  stirred  up  in  her  breast  by 
the  thought  that  he  had  no  claim  upon  her  and 
that  she  was  no  more  his  than  any  one  of  all  the 
other  women  in  the  world  was  punishment  to  her. 

She  made  a  pretense  of  working — but  she  was 
restless.  It  was  impossible  for  her  to  sit  still  long 
in  her  chair,  or  to  concentrate  her  mind.  She 
found  herself  reading  a  whole  letter  through  with- 
out knowing  at  all  what  it  was  about.  At  last  she 


DECISION  339 

gathered  her  work  into  a  thick  sheaf  and,  putting 
it  all  in  a  basket  ironically  marked  "Immediate 
attention,"  rose  and  walked  irresolutely  across 
the  room.  On  a  small  table  in  the  corner  of  the 
room  lay  the  office  atlas.  Moved  by  a  sudden  im- 
pulse, she  bent  over  the  volume  and  looked  up, 
among  its  intricate  maze  of  names  and  symbols, 
the  location  of  Bound  Beach.  In  tiny  type,  there 
it  was,  its  position  represented  by  a  dot  so  small 
that  the  delineator  in  making  it  could  scarcely 
have  allowed  his  pen  to  more  than  touch  the 
paper.  She  scaled  the  distance  to  the  place  by 
laying  her  pencil  on  the  map,  marking  the  distance 
on  it  with  her  finger  and  comparing  it  with  the 
scale  of  miles.  Two  hundred  miles  it  was. 

Two  hundred  miles !  Aside  from  all  the  other 
things  that  separated  her  from  him,  headed  by  the 
formidable  fact  that  she  could  not  lay  claim  to 
have  been  affianced  to  him,  was  added  now  two 
hundred  miles.  Although  he  was  surrounded  by 
the  storming  sea,  whose  great  forces  were  striving 
to  separate  him  from  her  by  eternity  itself,  she 
was  making  no  use  of  the  opportunity  to  come 
nearer  to  him,  while  there  was  yet  time,  than  two 
hundred  miles. 

The  words  rang  in  her  ears.  The  clock  on  the 
wall  ticked  them  off  until,  listening  to  it,  she  was 


340          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

like  one  in  a  delirium.  The  words  were  a  re- 
proach to  her  and  the  clock — his  clock — seemed 
forever  reiterating  them  to  her  with  that  intent. 
It  seemed  to  accuse  her  of  disloyalty  in  remaining 
far  away  from  him  while  it  ticked  away  the  pre- 
cious remaining  minutes  of  his  life. 

With  no  definite  plan  she  put  on  her  hat  and 
took  her  bag  from  the  table.  Incredulous  of  her 
own  half -formed  intention,  she  counted  the  money 
in  the  pocket-book  and,  sitting  down  at  the  desk, 
hastily  wrote  a  check  for  considerably  more.  She 
picked  up  the  telephone  and  held  it  in  her  hand 
for  a  thoughtful  moment.  Then,  calling  her 
mother,  she  explained  that  she  might  be  compelled 
to  leave  the  city  that  afternoon  and  might  not  re- 
turn until  the  next  day.  As  she  had  been  forced 
to  do  this  several  times  before,  it  was  a  satisfac- 
tory explanation  to  offer. 

Upon  the  street  a  strong  wind  was  blowing  and 
it  was  beginning  to  rain.  She  hurried  to  her  bank 
and  then,  with  no  hesitation  but  with  a  curious 
interest  as  to  how  far  the  impetus  of  her  idea 
would  carry  her,  she  boarded  a  car  for  the  rail- 
road station.  Nearing  the  station  the  impetus  of 
the  idea  seemed  to  grow  stronger  rather  than 
weaker.  In  fact,  she  had  come  to  the  very  firm 
conclusion  that  if  she  showed  even  a  fruitless  loy- 


DECISION  341 

alty  by  going  to  him  in  the  crisis  it  would  be  a 
comforting  thing  to  think  of  afterwards.  And  if 
he  were  saved — she  could  escape  without  his 
knowing  what  she  had  done. 

There  was  a  train  at  half-past  twelve  that  she 
must  take.  And  when  it  pulled  out  of  the  station 
she  was  upon  it. 

At  half-past  nine  that  night  Ezra  Starkwether 
opened  his  door  to  the  storm.  He  had  seen  the 
wavering  lantern  held  by  someone  slowly  ap- 
proaching who  breasted  the  gale  with  difficulty. 
When  he  saw  by  its  uncertain  light  that  beside  the 
man  who  carried  it  walked  a  woman,  he  took  his 
gray  head,  uncovered,  out  into  the  night  to  meet 
them. 

Unperturbed,  unsurprised,  unquestioning,  he 
greeted  the  storm-chilled  girl  and  led  her  in  to  the 
homely  comfort  of  the  kitchen  stove,  where  he 
forced  her  to  kick  off  her  soaked  shoes,  which 
gurgled  when  she  walked,  and  thrust  her  feet  into 
the  oven.  Her  other  clothes  had  been  more  or 
less  protected  by  a  yellow  sou'-wester  provided  by 
the  man  Peter  who  had  escorted  her  the  last  part 
of  the  journey.  Peter,  curious  yet  anxious  to  be 
of  assistance,  sat  in  a  tilted-back  chair,  which  he 
brought  down  upon  all  fours  with  alacrity  when 
there  was  any  mention  of  anything  to  be  fetched 


342          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

or  carried.  Otherwise  he  sat  quietly  and  stared 
ahead  with  unspeculative  eyes.  Old  man  Stark- 
wether  stood  by  the  stove  thoughtfully  opening 
and  shutting  the  blade  of  his  clasp-knife. 

"Well,"  he  said,  at  length,  casually,  "what 
brings  you  down  here  in  this  driving  storm*?" 

"The  steamer  out  here,"  she  replied. 

He  knitted  his  bushy  brows.  "Someone  aboard 
you  know*?" 

"Yes." 

"Relatives?" 

"No."  She  swallowed  something  that  rose  in 
her  throat.  "A  friend." 

He  nodded  his  head  several  times  understand- 
ingly.  "One  of  the  young  men  that  was  here 
with  you  this  summer*?"  he  asked,  going  to  the 
heart  of  the  matter. 

"The  first  one,"  she  answered,  faintly. 

There  was  a  silence  in  the  room  save  for  the 
simmering  of  the  kettle  on  the  stove. 

"The  steamer's  in  a  bad  way,"  said  Peter,  in  a 
deep,  toneless  voice,  like  someone  reciting  a  piece. 

Neither  one  answered  him  nor  commented  upon 
his  statement.  Starkwether  closed  his  knife  and 
thrust  it  into  his  pocket. 

"Peter  and  I  were  thinking,"  he  said,  "of  going 
out  there  in  the  yawl  after  them.  I  cal'late  we 


DECISION  343 

understand  the  humors  of  the  seas  hereabouts 
better  than  most." 

He  gazed  meditatively  at  the  stove.  The  girl 
said  nothing,  but  hot  excitement  gripped  at  her 
heart.  She  waited,  wondering  if  there  was  more 
to  be  said. 

"However,"  the  old  man  continued,  "it  would 
take  three  to  man  the  boat  in  this  weather,  and 
no  one  else  seems  inclined  to  go." 

She  drew  her  feet  from  the  oven  and  stood  up 
excitedly,  overturning  the  chair  behind  her. 

"Why,"  she  exclaimed,  trying  to  be  calm,  but 
her  eyes  flashing  fire,  "I  can  go." 

The  old  man  eyed  her  wonderingly.     "You1?" 

"Why  not?' 

"You're  sailor  enough."  He  hesitated.  "But 
there  is  danger." 

"That  wouldn't  prevent  you  from  going, 
would  it?" 

"Yes,  but  we  are  old  and  useless.  You  are 
young,  with  all  your  life  before  you." 

She  put  both  her  hands  upon  his  rough  cloth 
shoulders.  "All  my  life,"  she  cried,  unsteadily, 
"is  behind  me  if  the  boat  out  there — goes  down." 

He  touched  her  upon  the  arm  in  a  rough  em- 
barrassed way,  and,  as  she  turned  away  from  them 
to  hide  her  eyes  that  were  wet  now  with  a  storm 


344          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

that  was  not  rain,  he  moved  over  to  the  stove  to 
set  back  the  boiling  coffee  pot. 

"Well,"  he  said,  at  length,  looking  at  no  one, 
"we  can't  go  out  now  before  dawn." 


CHAPTER  XXVI 

THE    YAWL 

As  the  first  gray  of  dawn  brought  life  to  the 
dead  hulk  of  the  night  and  the  world  arranged 
itself  faintly  into  land  and  sky  and  sea,  a  phantom 
yawl — a  mere  smudge  upon  the  blurred  morn,  ran 
up  silent  sails,  muffled  by  the  whistling  gale,  and 
worked  its  way,  invisible  from  the  shore,  out  from 
the  heaving  inlet  to  the  tumult  of  the  tossing  sea 
beyond. 

Behind  the  steersman  of  this  phantom  craft,  a 
tiny  sail,  double-reefed,  struggled  against  the  gale, 
and  forward  another  held  it  on  its  course.  Mere 
postage  stamps  of  sail  they  were,  but  they  heeled 
over  the  snub-nosed,  broad-beamed  boat  until 
she  dug  her  scuppers  into  the  waves  and,  with 
her  blunt  bow,  shovelled  up  bulks  of  solid  sea 
that  broke  and  ran  awash  over  her  deck. 

The  gray-bearded  steersman  felt,  rather  than 
saw,  his  course  across  the  dusky  water.  He  could 
scarcely  see  the  spray  that  leaped  up  at  the  bow, 
and  in  the  tumult  of  the  storm  he  was  almost  as  a 

345 


34-6          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

deaf  man.  He  could  not  hear  the  rattle  of  the 
stay-sail  when  he  held  his  craft  too  close  into  the 
wind,  and  the  resulting  stentorian  "Shakin'  for- 
rad"  of  the  man  in  the  bow  came  back  to  him  as 
a  whisper. 

After  each  long  struggling  tack  against  the  gale 
his  bellowing  voice  would  roar  against  the  storm. 
A  tiny  echo,  it  reached  the  ears  of  the  tall  man 
and  his  slender  companion  forward.  As  the  bow 
came  up  into  the  wind  they  would  let  go  the  sheet 
of  the  stay-sail  and,  grappling  with  the  furious 
thing,  which  writhed  and  struggled  like  a  wild 
animal,  make  it  fast  upon  the  other  side — just 
before  the  gale,  filling  it  out,  drew  it  taut  with  a 
fury  that  strove  to  pull  the  cleat  from  the  deck. 

It  was  an  hour  before  the  light  was  strong 
enough  to  make  visible  from  the  shore  the  little 
craft  rising  upon  the  breast  of  each  moving  wall 
of  water  and  disappearing  from  sight  in  the  depths 
beyond.  When  eager  marine  glasses  striving  to 
pick  the  stranded  steamer  out  of  the  distant  gray, 
saw  before  them  this  determined  creature  strug- 
gling manfully  against  the  sea,  the  first  feeling  of 
the  onlookers  was  of  amazement  and  wonder — 
and  then  of  pity.  To  them  it  seemed  only  to 
mean  that  here  were  a  few  more  lives  sacrificed 
to  the  greed  of  the  storm. 


THE  YAWL  347 

The  news  spread.  For  two  hours  the  gathering 
crowd  watched  the  contest  between  the  sea  and  the 
small  thing  that  looked  like  a  child's  toy  boat. 
People  gathered  from  the  beaches  to  north  and 
south  and  stood  in  patient,  excited  groups  on  the 
shore.  It  had  been  many  a  day  since  Bound 
Beach  had  harbored  such  a  throng.  The  yawl 
tacked  and  came  about  and  tacked  and  came  about 
with  monotonous  regularity,  seeming  merely  to  be 
sliding  from  right  to  left  and  from  left  to  right  on 
a  line  parallel  with  the  shore,  without  apparently 
gaining  an  inch  to  seaward. 

Yet  actually  it  did  gain,  creeping  steadily  to- 
ward the  black  hull — which,  lying  far  down  by 
the  stern  and  keeled  over,  was  a  mere  shapeless 
mass,  not  like  a  ship  at  all,  from  which  a  mast  and 
a  red-banded  stack  pointed  dizzily  shorewards. 

To  the  crew  upon  the  yawl,  it  was  immeasur- 
ably far  away.  They  caught  glimpses  of  it  peri- 
odically beyond  the  unending  ranks  of  waves,  each 
of  which  as  it  came  they  laboriously  ascended  and, 
coming  down  upon  the  other  side,  seemed  never 
nearer  than  before.  The  goal  was  always  the 
same  distance  from  them,  as  though  the  storm 
were  solid  substance  that  formed  a  wall  against 
them. 

A  skipper  less  seasoned  to  the  humors  and  tac- 


348          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

tics  of  the  sea  and  the  wind  on  that  particular 
shore — against  which  he  had  battled  for  nearly 
half  a  century — would  have  stood  no  chance. 
Starkwether  did  not  permit  himself  to  be  dis- 
turbed by  the  storm's  blind  strength,  but  feeling 
at  length  the  wind  upon  his  cheek  almost  imper- 
ceptibly slacken — if  slacken  could  be  used  to  de- 
scribe the  slight  diminution  in  intensity  of  a  gale 
that  was  still  three-fourths  hurricane — he  seized 
the  opportunity  to  meet  disaster  half  way  and  take 
the  offensive  into  his  own  hands.  He  called  for 
the  raising  of  the  three-reefed  mainsail. 

He  brought  the  third  member  of  the  crew,  who, 
dripping  with  spray  and  encased  in  boots  and  yel- 
low skins,  gave  no  sign  of  her  sex,  to  hold  the 
writhing  wheel,  which,  borrowing  power  from  the 
sea,  bucked  and  struggled  like  a  live  thing.  The 
two  men  then  fell  to  the  halyards.  Ashore  it 
seemed  like  suicide  when  the  dirty  white  canvas 
rose  from  the  deck.  Aboard  the  wrecked  steamer 
it  spelled  hope.  The  yawl  reeled  under  her  in- 
creased sail,  but  resisted  the  wind  sturdily;  and 
from  the  spurting  foam  at  her  forefoot  it  could  be 
seen  that  she  was  taking  the  upper  hand.  For  the 
first  time  she  seemed  to  be  actually  moving 
through  the  water. 

Aboard  the  slowly  settling  steamer,  hope  rose 


THE  YAWL  349 

in  the  breasts  of  the  imprisoned  passengers.  In 
the  hours  since  daybreak  they  had  watched  the 
sailboat  coming  toward  them — doubtfully,  in- 
credulously, not  daring  to  believe  that  the  tiny 
craft  could  reach  them.  But  they  were  grasping 
at  straws,  and  this  rescuer  was  their  only  hope. 

When  at  length  it  came  so  close  that  the  mem- 
bers of  the  crew  were  clearly  visible,  the  hope  be- 
came a  precious  and  sturdy  bulwark  to  which  they 
clung  with  raised  spirits.  They  made  their  indi- 
vidual and  characteristic  preparations  to  leave. 
They  put  on  the  clothes  they  most  wanted  to  save, 
for  the  word  had  been  passed  around  that  for  obvi- 
ous reasons  it  would  be  impossible  for  anyone  to 
carry  even  the  smallest  parcel  or  piece  of  luggage. 
It  was  ludicrous  to  see  men,  having  for  many  hours 
faced  death,  gravely  putting  on  coats  and  trousers 
over  those  already  in  place,  and  sitting  double- 
clad  in  the  stifling  heat,  hoping,  with  their  lives, 
to  save  also  an  extra  suit  of  clothes. 

Here  stood  a  young  girl  stolidly  waiting — a 
much-prized  evening  gown,  low  in  the  neck  and 
short  as  to  sleeves,  drawn  hastily  on  over  her  dark 
suit  and  buttoned  incompletely  arear.  Rotund 
ladies  glittered  with  rows  of  breast  pins,  covering 
available  surface  like  distinguished  orders,  and 
were  puffed  out  more  rotund  than  ever  with  pre- 


350          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

cious  articles  stowed  beneath  their  outer  clothes. 

The  purser  and  assistants  went  about  among  the 
passengers  collecting  baggage  and  things  of  value 
to  be  stored  in  the  safest  place  upon  the  ship,  so 
that  in  event  of  its  weathering  the  storm,  these 
could  be  salvaged  and  returned  to  their  respective 
owners.  Receipts  were  carefully  given  and  the 
businesslike  proceeding  put  heart  into  them  all. 

But  one  poor,  pathetic  little  man  took  no  heart 
at  this  proceeding.  For  forty-eight  hours  he  had 
sat  with  his  leather  bag  between  his  feet,  scarcely 
even  moving,  and  when  he  did  move,  he  took  it 
jealously  with  him.  The  black-haired  Greek 
watched  the  purser  sullenly,  fearfully,  as  he  came 
on  his  round,  gathering  precious  luggage  and  send- 
ing it  away.  Like  an  animal  at  bay,  his  eyes 
blazed  in  desperation.  His  whole  body  grew 
tense  as  the  enemy  approached. 

The  enemy  stood  before  him.  In  the  little 
man  seated  shyly  there,  this  enemy  saw  no  signs 
of  pent-up  emotion — and  reached  forward  cas- 
ually for  the  precious  burden.  Quick  fire  shot 
from  the  black  eyes,  and,  as  one  whose  child  is  to 
be  torn  from  him,  the  Greek  rose  to  his  feet  and 
miraculously  held  glittering  steel  in  his  hand.  It 
took  several  men  to  overpower  him  and  wrest 
away  his  avenging  knife.  His  treasure  was  taken 


THE  YAWL  351 

from  him,  and  he,  who  had  stood  the  terrors  of  the 
storm  undisturbed,  sank  dejected  into  his  chair, 
all  hope  gone. 

William  Spade  stood  upon  the  sloping  deck 
looking  shorewards.  There  were  no  horizontal 
nor  vertical  surfaces  now  upon  the  steamer.  One 
had  to  invent  his  own  method  of  passing  from  spot 
to  spot  upon  the  inclined  surfaces  and  of  main- 
taining his  footing  in  the  spot  where  he  happened 
to  be.  The  passengers  were  not  allowed  upon 
deck,  but,  since  William  had  been  rendering  serv- 
ice with  the  crew  upon  every  available  occasion, 
it  was  impossible  to  bar  him  now  from  any  place 
because  of  its  danger. 

It  was  an  absorbing  struggle  that  he  watched. 
The  members  of  the  crew  beside  him  pointed  out 
the  small  bits  of  skillful  and  daring  seamanship 
exhibited  by  the  skipper  of  the  yawl.  Almost 
forgetting  that  he  was  a  person  interested  in  the 
success  of  the  craft,  he  shouted  enthusiasm  with 
the  approving  air  of  a  person  who  watched  a  con- 
test merely  as  a  spectator. 

They  saw  the  yawl,  cuffed  and  buffetted  by  the 
waves  and  bent  over  by  the  wind,  doggedly  and 
with  a  vicious  determination,  splitting  the  water 
and  moving  almost  counter  to  the  gale.  It  moved 
with  an  appearance  of  swaggering  contempt  for 


352  THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

the  storm  that  was  heroic.  For  those  on  board 
the  steamer  it  changed  hope  to  enthusiasm  and 
enthusiasm  to  frantic  joy. 

At  eleven  o'clock,  triumphant  in  its  breasting  of 
the  storm,  it  stood  abreast  of  the  steamer's  bow, 
a  quarter  of  a  mile  away.  It  soon  became  appar- 
ent that  no  small  boat  could  make  the  journey  to 
bring  a  line  from  it  to  the  Erocadillo.  The  only 
hope  was  that  the  yawl  would  be  able  to  cast  a 
line  to  the  steamer  and  then  drop  safely  to  lee- 
ward and  anchor. 

To  do  this,  the  sailboat  would  have  to  come 
dangerously  close  to  the  steamer.  It  would  re- 
quire a  delicate  piece  of  steering  to  bring  the  craft 
close  enough  to  cast  the  line,  yet  far  enough  away 
not  to  be  drawn  down  by  the  suction  of  the  water 
rushing  back  to  fill  the  void  made  shore  wards  of 
the  steamer  by  the  pull  of  the  passing  wave.  But 
the  skipper  of  the  yawl  evidently  felt  that  he 
could  do  it,  for  after  jockeying  around  out  to  sea- 
ward for  some  time,  he  at  last  got  into  position 
and  ran  down  almost  before  the  wind  toward  the 
Brocadillo's  bow. 

So  close  was  his  course  laid  that  to  those  watch- 
ing it  seemed  as  if  he  would  strike  her  head  on. 
A  tall  man  stood  in  the  bow  holding  a  line. 
Tense  excitement  gripped  them  all.  The  little 


THE  YAWL  353 

boat,  missing  the  great  one  by  many  yards,  seemed 
still  to  be  desperately  close.  Gauging  the  dis- 
tance, fifty  minds  tried  to  decide  whether  the 
throw  could  be  made.  But  as  the  yawl  came 
abreast  of  the  steel  bow,  the  hull  blanketed  her, 
and,  cut  off  from  the  wind,  she  slipped  swiftly 
away.  The  man  threw,  and  the  line  fell  into  the 
sea. 

A  groan  of  angry  disappointment  rose  from  the 
ship  deck.  But  the  sailboat,  which  seemed  to 
have  taken  on  a  human  personality,  came  about 
briskly  and,  undismayed,  prepared  to  repeat  the 
operation.  After  perhaps  half  an  hour,  she  came 
down  again  before  the  wind.  This  time  the  man 
threw  before  the  boat  lost  its  headway.  But  just 
at  that  point  the  sea,  rushing  by  the  Brocadillo's 
bow,  developed  a  choppy  roughness  that  was  im- 
possible to  gauge.  The  man  was  unbalanced 
when  he  threw  and  the  line  sprawled,  a  long  thin 
snake,  upon  the  waves. 

With  a  calm  thoroughness  they  tried  a  third 
time  and  a  fourth  time,  maneuvering  for  a  better 
position,  but  not  seeming  to  find  it.  A  fifth  time 
they  bore  down  upon  the  steamer.  The  little  boat 
did  not  come  straight  on  before  the  wind,  but, 
tacking  up  from  shorewards,  sought  out  a  position 
just  beyond  the  bow  and  carefully  timing  the 


354          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

waves,  cut  in  just  behind  the  crest  of  one  and 
rushed  by  the  steamer's  nose  so  close  that  it  seemed 
a  miracle  that  she  did  not  strike.  The  helmsman 
shouted.  The  man  at  the  bow  drew  back  his  arm 
to  cast,  but  instead,  measured  his  length  upon  the 
deck. 

The  sea,  curving  round  the  bows  like  a  mill 
race,  had  swirled  in  to  fill  the  void  left  by  the  on- 
rushing  wave.  The  flood  of  water  caught  the 
stern  of  the  yawl  and  whirled  it  round  as  if  it  had 
been  upon  a  pivot.  The  boat  lay  there  wallowing 
in  the  sea,  its  sails  shaking  helplessly,  its  helm 
powerless  to  guide  it.  For  a  full  half  minute  she 
lay  there.  Two  lines  shot  out  from  the  steamer, 
but  the  sloping  deck  gave  poor  footing  and 
strangely  destroyed  one's  sense  of  the  horizontal, 
so  that  neither  line  reached  its  goal. 

Then  a  great  wave  rolled  over  the  steamer  and 
seemed  literally  to  drop  into  the  yawl.  No  one 
aboard  the  Brocadillo  expected  ever  to  see  her 
mast-side-up  again.  But  when  the  spray  had 
cleared,  there  she  lay  some  thirty  or  forty  yards 
further  distant,  her  mast  still  pointing  skywards, 
riding  the  waves  bow  on,  with  a  certain  appear- 
ance of  calm  and  unruffled  confidence. 

Her  sails  filled  and,  making  steerageway,  she 
put  off  again  to  windward.  It  could  be  seen  that 


THE  YAWL  355 

she  had  shipped  much  water  and  could  not  make 
many  more  such  trials.  The  passengers  of  the 
steamer,  filled  with  apprehension  lest  the  little 
boat  should  give  up  the  contest,  cheered  lustily. 

But,  despite  this  gloom  fell  upon  those  that 
thronged  the  tilting  deck.  The  little  craft,  after 
her  dangerous  experiment  of  running  in  close, 
would  be  forced  to  more  cautious  tactics.  Chance 
alone  had  saved  her  from  capsizing  as  she  lay 
helpless  under  the  steamer's  lee,  and  such  a  risk 
could  not  be  taken  again. 

William  Spade  gazed  contemplatively  at  the 
men  on  the  deck  and  at  the  anxious  faces  peering 
from  the  cabin  windows.  Fifty  souls  there  were 
depending  upon  the  throw  of  a  line.  His  habit 
of  almost  subconsciously  figuring  out  probabilities 
and  chance  at  the  crises  of  his  life  made  him  feel 
that  the  line  would  not  be  successfully  thrown. 

It  was  the  time  for  a  decisive  action.  Someone 
aboard  the  Brocadillo  must  help.  What  was  risk- 
ing one's  life  now  when  they  were  all  risking  their 
lives'?  If  he  could  do  something  to  help  his  fel- 
low men,  it  might  give  him  a  claim  upon  God. 
He  felt  the  urgent  need  of  establishing  now  a 
reciprocal  relation  such  as  the  placid-faced  woman 
in  the  cabin  seemed  to  enjoy,  with  his  Maker. 

His  mind  was  made  up.     With  a  furious  en- 


356          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

thusiasm  he  cast  off  boots  and  slicker  and  sou'- 
wester. It  would  have  dumbfounded  his  com- 
panions could  they  have  seen  him  as,  shielded  be- 
hind the  corner  of  the  cabin,  he  stripped  down  to 
his  underclothes  and  made  fast  a  line  about  his 
waist.  The  other  end  of  the  line  he  fastened  se- 
curely to  a  cleat  on  the  deck.  All  this  he  did 
secretly,  lest  someone  in  authority  should  forbid 
him  to  carry  out  his  plan. 

His  heart  beat  high  with  excitement  and, 
strangely  enough,  the  one  thought  that  came  into 
his  mind,  now  that  he  was  ready  for  action,  was  a 
feeling  of  embarrassment  at  having  to  step  out  on 
the  deck  presently  where  all  the  strange  motley  of 
women  behind  the  cabin  windows  would  see  him 
undressed. 

The  yawl,  now  dead  before  the  Brocadillo's 
bows,  a  quarter  of  a  mile  distant,  came  about, 
and  presently  ran  before  the  wind  toward  them. 
If  all  other  hearts  upon  the  steamer  now  beat  fast 
with  a  painful  anxiety,  William's  stood  still.  He 
went  to  the  rail,  but  no  one  saw  him — for  every 
eye  was  glued  upon  the  oncoming  boat.  It  seemed 
hours  that  it  took  to  cover  the  short  distance.  He 
had  never  before  known  such  burning  excitement 
as  gripped  him  as  he  waited.  He  was  willing  to 
act,  but  uncertain  of  his  ability  to  succeed. 


THE  YAWL  357 

The  little  craft  came  by  the  Brocadillo's  bow,  as 
upon  her  first  trip,  giving  it  ample  room,  yet  sail- 
ing as  close  as  the  skipper  dared.  The  tall  man, 
now  lashed  to  the  shrouds,  stood  with  the  coiled 
line  in  his  hand.  The  smaller  figure  was  in  the 
very  bow  watching  the  water.  All  these  details 
he  saw.  They  remained  pictured  on  his  mind. 

The  man  in  the  bow  suddenly  shouted  some- 
thing and  the  one  with  the  line  drew  back  his 
arm. 

Spade  leaped  upon  the  tafFrail.  The  rope  rose 
in  a  fine  parabola,  shot  toward  the  steamer,  and 
losing  its  momentum,  amid  a  groan  of  disappoint- 
ment, fell  into  the  sea. 

A  second  later,  William  Spade  was  in  the  water 
beside  it. 


CHAPTER  XXVII 

THE    LIFE    LINE 

It  is  a  strange  thing  that  heroic  acts  are  judged 
and  rated,  not  so  much  by  the  bravery  and  daring 
required  for  their  performance  as  by  the  surprise 
they  cause  in  the  minds  of  the  onlookers.  The 
long  lines  of  soldiers  who  stand  for  hours  as  pa- 
tient targets  for  the  enemy's  fire,  are  not  heroes, 
except  in  a  broad,  general  sense,  for  they  are  doing 
what  is  expected  of  them ;  but  if  one  of  their  num- 
ber rushes  out  into  the  open  to  perform  some  use- 
ful deed,  exposing  himself  spectacularly  to  the  fire 
he  has  been  exposed  to  unnoticed  all  alone,  the 
shock  of  it  brings  him  to  notice. 

Had  the  psychology  of  this  occurred  to  Spade 
before  hand,  he  could  not  have  set  the  stage  better 
for  his  feat.  When  the  line  cast  from  the  yawl 
fell  short  and,  with  it,  dropped  every  shred  of 
reasonable  hope,  his  white  body,  leaping  from  no 
one  knew  where,  almost  as  miraculously  as  an 
angel  from  Heaven,  had  electrified  them  all.  And 
when  they  saw  at  length  that  it  was  not  an  appari- 

358 


THE  LIFE  LINE  359 

tion  but  a  flesh  and  blood  man,  grasping  in  his 
hand  the  rope  from  the  yawl  and  bound  around 
his  waist  by  another  from  the  steamer,  they  gave 
themselves  up  to  a  frenzy  of  enthusiasm. 

Aboard  the  sailboat,  the  tired  crew  saw  it  with 
hardly  less  excitement.  And  to  one  member  of 
it,  it  meant  more  than  excitement.  The  girl  who 
stood  at  the  mast-foot,  salt  water  dripping  from 
every  corner  of  her  water-proof  masculine  armor, 
was  lifted  bodily  out  of  her  weariness  as  she  saw 
the  man  shoot  overside  into  the  ocean.  But  still 
more  excitation  of  feeling  was  due  her.  As,  in- 
voluntarily, she  rushed  to  the  gunwale  to  see 
whether  he  had  caught  the  rope,  the  swimmer, 
striking  out  with  a  strong  stroke,  raised  his  head 
for  an  instant  from  the  sea — and  gave  her  a  full 
view  of  his  face ! 

For  a  moment  it  seemed  as  though  she  did  not 
breathe — as  though  all  her  physical  functions 
paused — save  the  power  to  gaze  fascinated  at  the 
man  in  the  water :  and  know  that  it  was  William 
Spade.  Then  the  blood,  released,  rushed  hot 
through  her  chilled  body.  Her  breath  came 
quickly.  Forgetful  of  everything  about  her  she 
shouted  aloud  to  him,  but  scarcely  heard  the  whis- 
per of  her  voice  against  the  wind. 

It  was  a  moment  of  exaltation.     Every  nerve 


360  THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

in  her  body  was  galvanized  into  life,  as  if  she 
would,  by  the  force  of  her  very  will-power,  lend 
assistance  to  him.  It  was  as  if  a  part  of  her  were 
performing  the  feat  she  witnessed.  But  it  was  a 
hundred  times  more  glorious  and  comforting  to 
know  that  the  heroism  was  his.  It  raised  him  up 
actually  to  the  place  where  she  had  put  him,  so 
that  now  the  image  of  him  she  had  unwillingly, 
yet  uncontrollably,  looked  up  to  was  replaced  and 
deposed  by  the  actual  and  living  man. 

Then,  as  a  wave  passed  on,  churning  man  and 
ropes  about  on  its  chaotic  breast,  leaving  for  a 
moment  quiet  water  beneath  the  lee  of  the 
steamer,  two  score  of  hands  drew  upon  the  rope 
about  his  waist;  and,  just  before  the  next  wave 
struck,  she  saw  him  clamber  over  the  rail,  the 
precious  line  to  the  yawl  clasped  tightly  in  his 
hand. 

The  next  few  hours  were  dim  and  indistinct — 
filled  with  the  steady,  unexciting  clinching  of  the 
advantage  they  had  gained — stirring  hours,  but  to 
the  tired  girl  who  had  touched  the  zenith  of  excite- 
ment, anticlimactic  and  powerless  to  thrill. 

While  they  were  still  struggling  to  get  the  line 
aboard  the  Brocadillo,  there  had  been  coming 
steadily  toward  them  in  the  now  calmer  sea,  unno- 
ticed, three  surf-boats,  slowly  propelled  by  many 


THE  LIFE  LINE  361 

sturdy  oars.  These,  presently  arriving  upon  the 
scene,  were  of  inestimable  value.  What  the  situ- 
ation needed  now  was  brawn,  fresh  energy  and 
expertness.  Here  it  was. 

When,  by  means  of  the  light  line  running  to  the 
steamer,  a  heavier  one  had  been  drawn  aboard  and 
made  fast  and  had  again  been  made  fast  to  the 
sailboat  now  anchored,  bow  and  stern,  to  leeward, 
they  had  a  sturdy  connection  between  the  two. 
With  the  aid  of  the  small  dory  the  yawl  carried, 
they  endeavored  to  improvise  a  rope-ferry.  The 
dory,  however,  was  too  small  and  it  was  not  until 
one  of  the  surfboats  was  substituted  for  it  that 
the  arrangement  appeared  safe. 

A  trip  between  the  two  boats  was  successfully 
made — and  then  eleven  others.  The  surfmen 
held  bags  of  oil  upon  the  waves  to  calm  them  and, 
as  the  transfer  of  passengers  at  each  end  was  made, 
poured  bucketsful  of  oil  upon  the  water,  so  that 
no  mishap  occurred. 

It  was  not  necessary  for  Ruth  to  engage  in  any 
part  of  this  work.  There  was  plenty  of  hardened 
muscle  available  now.  She  gave  her  time  there- 
fore to  trying  to  make  the  rescued  women  com- 
fortable in  the  crowded  cabin  of  the  yawl.  She 
did  not  even  see  the  work  of  rescue.  When  all 
the  women  were  aboard,  the  cabin  was  full  to  suf- 


362          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

focation;  and  the  overflow  lined  the  deck,  tied  like 
convicts  to  a  rope  running  from  mast  to  helm.  It 
was  decided,  with  reason,  that  the  craft  was  full. 
The  others,  therefore,  with  the  exception  of  the 
captain  and  the  chief  engineer,  who  elected  to 
stay  aboard  the  steamer,  were  accommodated  in 
the  surfboats. 

It  was  a  long,  tedious  journey  shorewards. 
But,  as  they  neared  the  mouth  of  the  inlet,  the  sun 
burst  through  the  clouds  for  a  few  moments  and 
threw  a  rainbow  over  the  sky  before  them.  The 
thousand  people  gathered  upon  the  shore  burst 
into  a  cheer — real  music  to  everyone  aboard  the 
incoming  boats. 

A  great  press  of  people,  half  hysterical  with  en- 
thusiasm, gathered  about  them  as  they  landed 
upon  the  shore.  The  news  soon  spread  that  one 
of  the  rescuers  was  a  woman.  To  her  horror, 
therefore,  when  Ruth  came  ashore  she  found  her- 
self surrounded  by  a  wild,  cheering  crowd  of 
maniacs,  who,  deprived  temporarily  of  all  their 
mental  faculties,  shook  hands  with  her,  embraced 
her  (regardless  of  sex),  cut  souvenir  pieces  from 
her  rubber  coat  and  were  only  prevented  from 
kissing  her  by  the  surging  of  the  crowd,  which 
destroyed  their  aim. 

She  was  at  length  entirely  surrounded  by  news- 


THE  LIFE  LINE  363 

paper  men.  These,  regarding  her  as  their  own 
personal  property,  impatiently  shouldered  aside 
the  ordinary  public,  who,  to  their  minds,  were  not 
supposed  to  come  in  contact  with  real  news  except 
through  the  insulating  medium  of  the  press.  This 
girl  represented  real  news,  heart  throbs,  human 
interest,  and  what  they  would  have  called 
"woman-stuff" — the  almost  ideal  newspaper 
story.  The  girl  eyed  their  eager  faces  apprehen- 
sively, with  all  the  trepidation  of  a  missionary 
about  to  be  invited  to  a  cannibal  feast. 

"My  dear  young  lady,"  exclaimed  one  of  the 
cannibals,  "this  is  a  big  woman-story.  We'll  ex- 
ploit you  from  Portland,  Maine,  to  Portland,  Ore- 
gon, and  back  again.  You  will  awake  tomorrow 
morning  to  find  yourself  famous." 

She  laughed  nervously,  as  might  the  reverend 
spreader  of  the  gospel  at  first  sight  of  the  boiling 
water  in  the  cauldron.  But  she  was  reassured 
when  she  saw  Starkwether  coming  toward  her. 

"Your  name,  please,"  said  one  of  the  hungry 
journalists. 

Her  eyes  shone.  "Mary  Smith,"  she  said,  and 
grasping  the  old  man's  arm,  followed  his  broad 
shoulders  through  the  crowd. 


CHAPTER  XXVIII 

THE    ARK    OF    THE    COVENANT 

Evading  the  multitude  (which  was  made  less 
difficult  by  the  fact  that  few  recognized  her  in 
her  street  clothes),  Ruth  was  taken  by  motor 
boat  from  a  secluded  point  on  the  inlet  across 
to  the  further  shore,  where  she  just  succeeded  in 
catching  a  train,  which  carried  her  away  an  hour 
or  more  in  advance  of  everyone  else. 

The  remaining  participants  in  the  battle  with 
the  sea  were  proffered  food,  lodging,  automobiles, 
motor  boats  in  profusion.  Some,  thoroughly  ex- 
hausted, were  only  too  glad  to  stay  where  a  chance 
of  sleep  presented  itself.  Others,  anxious  to  be 
away  to  join  friends  and  families  who  waited  for 
them,  accepted  the  first  means  of  transportation 
that  was  offered,  and  went  as  quickly  as  modern 
devices  could  take  them. 

Spade,  in  the  heat  of  the  closing  day  which, 
now  released  from  the  caress  of  the  north-east 
wind,  became  a  normal  summer  evening,  boarded 
a  Pullman  car,  attired  in  two  full  suits  of  clothes 

364 


THE  ARK  OF  THE  COVENANT    365 

and  carrying  a  light  overcoat.  With  feverish 
haste  he  rushed  into  the  smoking  compartment 
and,  unabashed,  began  to  disrobe  before  the  cold 
gaze  of  the  smokers.  They  doubtless  supposed, 
from  lack  of  data  on  the  subject,  that  he  was  about 
to  perform  a  classic  dance  representing  Narcissus, 
or  Paris  upon  the  walls  of  Troy. 

But  when,  beneath  his  outer  garments  of  mod- 
esty, there  were  presently  disclosed  other  gar- 
ments similarly  modest,  and  when  taking  off  a 
second  coat  and  vest,  he  divested  himself  of  his 
shirt,  they  saw  that  he  was  merely  mentally  un- 
balanced— or  else  that  he  bore  a  charmed  life, 
so  that  no  matter  how  much  he  took  off,  he  al- 
ways had  the  happy  faculty  of  remaining  fully 
clothed. 

"Yo*  just  la'ake  an  onion,  sah,"  exclaimed  the 
Pullman  porter,  "you  keep  on  peeling  right  down 
to  the  bittah  end." 

Spade,  to  whom,  after  the  wearying  days  that 
had  preceded,  everything  was  serious,  and  for 
whom  the  world  had  not  yet  settled  again  into  its 
normal  perspective,  turned  in  a  matter  of  fact 
way  to  the  others  in  the  room. 

"It's  awfully  hot  in  those  things,"  he  said, 
with  the  air  of  explaining  away,  at  one  fell  swoop, 
the  mystery  of  his  taking  them  off. 


366          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

The  self-evident  fact,  however,  did  not  explain, 
and  for  the  remainder  of  the  journey  he  slept  in 
his  chair  surrounded  by  his  additional  and  un- 
necessary garments,  an  object  of  general  suspi- 
cion and  distrust  among  his  fellow-passengers, 
who  discussed  excitedly  the  wreck  of  the  steamer 
Brocadillo,  a  subject  they  knew  his  enfeebled 
mind  would  be  unable  to  grasp. 

When  he  awoke  for  a  few  moments  as  the  train 
stopped  at  an  intermediate  station  he  heard  them 
still  discussing  it — heard  them  sleepily  and  half 
comprehendingly.  He  realized  dimly  that  they 
had  bought  here  extra  papers  describing  the  rescue 
of  the  passengers.  His  own  name  arrested  his  im- 
minent dropping  again  into  the  abyss  of  sleep. 

"This  fellow  Spade,"  rumbled  a  voice  from 
behind  a  newspaper,  "pulled  off  that  grandstand 
play.  Trust  an  old  football  star  for  that. 
Waited  until  everything  else  failed  and  then  took 
the  whole  works  into  his  own  hands.  Ninety- 
nine  percent  grit,  that's  what  he  is.  Jumped 
right  into  that  ocean  just  as  if  it  were  the  four- 
foot-six  end  of  a  swimming  tank — and  turned  the 
trick,  by  Jove.  That's  the  point.  When  a  fel- 
low like  that  goes  in  to  win,  he  wins!" 

William  moved  uneasily  in  his  chair. 

"Why,  I  remember  when  I  saw  him  playing 


THE  ARK  OF  THE  COVENANT     367 

football  about  five  years  back — "  But  the  start 
ing  of  the  train  and  the  accompanying  noise 
blotted  out  the  words,  and  William  was  soon 
in  oblivion  again. 

His  first  thought  had  been  of  his  father  and 
mother.  They  would  certainly  be  worried  until 
they  saw  their  son  again  face  to  face.  The  train 
upon  which  he  rode,  in  the  character  of  harm- 
less imbecile,  was  the  first  he  could  catch  to  take 
him  to  his  old  home. 

He  was  a  strange  sight  as  he  walked  through  the 
station,  his  clothes  hanging  upon  his  arm.  But 
the  people  about  him  made  little  difference  to  him. 
The  only  emotion  he  felt  was  that  resulting  from 
the  fact  that  he  was  alive  and  treading  upon  firm 
ground.  Self-consciousness,  small  pride,  and  the 
whole  gamut  of  the  secondary  and  tertiary  emo- 
tions that  are  the  daily  goads  to  humans,  found 
no  place  in  his  mind.  His  soul  had  been  view- 
ing big  things,  his  mirrd  was  set  at  a  wide  angle, 
and  nothing  petty  was  registering  upon  his  con- 
sciousness. 

He  found  that  his  father  had  been  seriously  ill 
as  a  result  of  the  shock  occasioned  by  the  news 
of  the  shipwreck.  William  saw  when  he  greeted 
him  the  signals  of  the  old  man's  capitulation  to 
the  years  he  carried  upon  his  shoulders. 


368          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

"The  night  before  last,"  said  the  old  gentle- 
man, almost  with  unconcern,  "I  felt  that  it  was 
not  to  be  given  me  to  live  until  morning." 

"And,"  he  continued,  "I  made  the  resolve  then 
that  if  I  recovered,  I  should  lead  a  better  life." 

It  was  absurdly  pathetic  that  this  man,  whose 
only  fault  was  that  he  had  allowed  his  ideas  of 
right  and  duty  to  interfere  with  his  own  comfort 
and  happiness,  should  speak  of  chastening  his 
life! 

"I  am  in  thorough  accord  with  your  sentiment," 
William  said.  "However,  I  had  a  close  call  my- 
self. While  things  hung  in  the  balance  I  had 
plenty  of  time  to  think  it  over,  and  I  have  come 
to  the  conclusion  I  have  hitched  my  wagon  to 
the  wrong  star.  I  have  not  realized  my  respon- 
sibilities. I  have  allowed  an  advanced  state  of 
civilization  and  breeding  to  stand  in  the  place  of 
conscience  and  morality.  And  it  has  not  worked." 

"Conscience  and  morality,"  said  the  old  man, 
"are  the  things  which  built  up  our  nation.  It  is 
necessary  to  preserve  them. 

"I  think,"  he  continued,  "we  are  reaching  a  crest 
of  our  civilization  where  we  are  exchanging  these 
desirable  things  for  ease  and  pleasure.  We  are 
burdened  with  overconfidence.  We  are  satisfied 


THE  ARK  OF  THE  COVENANT     369 

with  our  morality,  our  religion,  the  state  of  our 
education  and  the  absolute  fitness  of  all  our  ambi- 
tions. And  when  we  find  a  few  flaws  in  our 
civilization,  we  reassure  ourselves  by  saying  the 
percentage  is  low  as  compared  with  our  general 
perfection." 

William  acknowledged  this  in  his  far-seeing 
frame  of  mind — in  the  spirit  of  the  ancient  mari- 
ner saved  from  shipwreck,  who  vowed  a  thousand 
candles  to  the  Virgin.  For  the  present  his  vision 
was  clear. 

He  smiled  a  rather  wry  smile.  "But,"  he  con- 
tinued, "suppose  one  did  find  that  a  nation's 
morals  and  energy  and  ambitions  were  on  the 
decline,  what  can  help  to  correct  the  condition*?" 

"Sometimes  I  believe,"  his  father  asserted, 
"only  the  hand  of  Heaven!"  In  recent  years 
the  old  man  had  had  little  to  do  but  to  read 
and  think,  and  he  had  turned  his  analytical  mind 
to  philosophizing  and  cataloguing  the  problems 
of  the  world.  "England  had  fallen  deep  into  a 
state  of  coma,  in  which  comfort  and  ease  were  the 
things  that  concerned  Englishmen  most.  It  took 
a  horrible  war  to  reawaken  them.  It  took  the 
same  horrible  war  to  make  heroic  again  a  decadent 
France.  Should  our  own  nation  continue  to  re- 


370  THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

gard  lightly  the  sturdy  things  of  life,  it  may  take 
just  such  a  cataclysm  to  set  us  again  upon  our 
proper  path." 

He  sank  into  a  sort  of  tired  reverie,  from  which 
he  presently  aroused  himself  with  a  reminiscent 
smile  on  his  lips.  His  mind  had  been  going  back 
many  years. 

"You  remember  a  long  while  ago,"  he  said, 
"you  could  not  understand  why  a  certain  clergy- 
man in  his  sermon  said  it  was  better  to  have  car- 
ried the  Ark  of  the  Covenant  upon  human  shoul- 
ders than  upon  a  cart  which  relieved  them  of  the 
burden  of  it.  I  think  that  is  the  danger  of  civili- 
zation. We  make  everything  easy  for  ourselves, 
and  our  desire  is  always  to  do  the  easy  thing 
rather  than  the  right  one." 

He  leaned  forward  in  his  chair.  "What  we 
all  need,  son,  is  to  do  the  hard  thing — to  feel  the 
weight  of  the  Ark  upon  our  shoulders.  If  each 
one  of  us  remembers  that,  and,  remembering  it, 
does  his  own  part,  no  adversity  will  be  necessary 
to  put  us  back  upon  the  right  road,  for  we  shall 
not  have  strayed  from  it.  A  homely  and  obvious 
truth  that;  but — it  is  such  little  grains  of  sand 
that  count — the  little  grains  of  sand." 

He  sank  back  into  his  chair,  his  tired  eyes 
closed.  His  son  looked  at  him  with  a  real 


THE  ARK  OF  THE  COVENANT     371 

physical  pain  in  his  heart.  That  soul  would  soon 
be  passing  on  to  another  shore — and  William 
somehow  felt  then  that  his  great  inheritance  from 
him  would  be  the  responsibility  of  trying  to  live 
as  he  had  lived.  A  great  responsibility  indeed — 
meaning  the  taking  of  the  Ark  from  its  comfor- 
table, easy  cart  and  the  bearing  of  it  upon  unac- 
customed shoulders. 


CHAPTER  XXIX 

MARY    SMITH 

It  was  two  days  after  the  wreck,  when  the 
public  mind  had  nearly  forgotten  it  and  the  news- 
papers had  swept  their  columns  clear  of  it  as 
mere  history,  except  for  a  couple  of  square  inches 
of  type  to  say  that  the  wrecking  tug,  aided  by 
fine  weather,  was  now  gradually  working  the 
steamer  off  the  bar,  that  once  again  the  office  of 
William  Spade  was  opened  as  usual.  It  was 
just  the  same  comfortable,  prosaic  business  office, 
giving  no  sign  of  having  had  any  connection,  how- 
ever indirect,  with  shipwreck  and  the  high  seas. 
Doubtless  indeed,  it  had  no  interest  in  these  things, 
being  satisfied  to  be  simply  an  efficient  shelter 
for  its  tenants,  without  exhibiting  any  emotional 
concern  over  their  adventures  in  other  places. 

The  stoical  calm  of  the  place  had  a  tranquil- 
izing  effect.  Ruth,  crossing  that  threshold  as  the 
clock  somewhere  was  striking  nine,  found  herself 
drawn  into  the  usual  groove — as  one  who  stepped 
upon  a  regularly  turning  treadmill,  whose 

372 


MARY  SMITH  373 

rhythmic  monotony  drove  away  thoughts  of  all 
other  considerations  and  problems. 

But  not  quite  all.  It  was,  indeed,  difficult  for 
her  to  remember  clearly  the  day  before  yesterday. 
Then  she  was  a  different  person.  Then,  instead 
of  the  present  dainty  Georgette  crepe  waist  (if 
that  were  the  name  of  the  Roentgen  fabric  of 
which  it  was  made),  the  smart  skirt  and  the  trim 
tan  shoes,  all  spotless  and  immaculate  as  if  the 
lady  therein  incased  had  never  been  out  in  so 
much  as  a  sprinkle  of  rain,  she  had  worn  a  stiff 
rubber  coat,  a  soiled  shapeless  hat  and  hip  boots 
that  blushed  beneath  no  encumbering  skirt,  over 
which  unmindful  she  let  the  sturdy  sea  break 
in  drenching  floods.  It  was  difficult  to  remember 
this  today  when  she,  the  braver  of  the  tempest, 
carried  a  fragile  parasol  to  hold  against  the  sun. 

Yet  one  thing  she  did  not  forget.  Prosaic  as 
was  the  present  moment  as  compared  with  the  ad- 
venturous ones  now  gone  past,  there  was  one  ave- 
nue of  excitement  still  to  be  traversed — a  wide 
street  capable  of  furnishing  ample  thrills.  For 
at  some  moment  the  door  to  the  office  would  open 
and  through  it  would  enter  William  Spade.  Per- 
haps today,  perhaps  tomorrow — but  as  certainly 
as  the  setting  of  the  day's  sun. 

What  could  be  more  disturbing  than  that? 


374          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

For  she  must  remember  that,  whatever  adventures 
she  had  lived  through  since  she  had  seen  him  last 
and  whatever  strength  and  bravery  he  had  exhib- 
ited to  her,  the  situation  would  be  the  same  when 
he  opened  the  door  of  the  office  as  it  had  been 
the  day  he  had  closed  it  behind  him.  She  had 
risked  many  things,  but  it  was  necessary  for  her 
to  remember  that  her  risking  had  not  altered  the 
fact  that  he  was  still  the  man  who  was  operating 
against  the  employees  of  the  Old  Dominion  Steel 
Company. 

Meanwhile,  Destiny,  acting  through  the  agency 
of  a  great  railroad  system,  was  bringing  William 
Spade  nearer  and  nearer  to  his  office  door.  He 
also  was  thinking  of  the  meeting  with  her.  But 
while  he  looked  forward  to  it  with  a  mixture  of 
embarrassment  and  pleasure,  he  looked  forward 
to  it  with  no  uncertainty  as  to  the  attitude  he 
should  adopt  toward  her.  He  looked  forward 
to  it  with  pleasure  because  she  was  always  first 
in  his  mind,  with  embarrassment  because  he  had 
said  to  her,  unresponding,  that  he  loved  her;  and 
he  would  always  be  sensitive  upon  that  point. 
His  pride  would  not  permit  him  therefore  to 
cheapen  his  love  (the  bestowing  of  which  he  re- 
garded as  a  mighty  thing)  by  thrusting  it,  un- 
welcome, upon  her. 


MARY  SMITH  375 

When  therefore,  he  placed  his  hand  upon  the 
outside  handle  of  the  door,  that  wood  and  glass 
barrier  separated,  though  he  could  not  have  known 
it,  two  strong  forces  held  in  leash.  But  what 
they  each  saw  as  the  door  swung  open  was  a 
slightly  embarrassed  young  woman  upon  the  one 
hand,  and  a  slightly  embarrassed  young  man  upon 
the  other. 

But  only  for  a  moment.  She  rose  quickly  and 
came  forward  with  an  engaging  frankness.  He 
looked  steadily  into  her  eyes  as  he  took  her  out- 
stretched hand.  Her  color  was  high  and  those 
eyes  bright,  but  there  was  no  other  indication  of 
any  disturbance  or  quickening  of  tempo  in  her. 
Instead  when  he  released  her  hand  she  reached 
forward  and  calmly  lifted  the  lapel  of  his 
coat. 

"Where  are  they1?"  she  asked. 

"Where  are  what1?"  he  returned,  puzzled. 

"The  medals — for  heroism.  You  should  never 
venture  out  without  them." 

He  met  her  mischievous  glance.  "I  am  grate- 
ful to  you,"  he  said.  "You  are  the  only  person 
who  has  suggested  medals." 

"Be  of  good  heart.  Soon  you  will  be  getting 
so  many  you  will  dread  the  arrival  of  every 
post." 


376  THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

"I  did  nothing,"  he  observed,  "except  to  save 
my  own  life.  That  was  not  especially  praise- 
worthy." 

She  seated  herself  at  her  desk.  Upon  the  blot- 
ter she  drew  aimless  arabesques.  "I  know  what 
you  did,"  she  said,  at  length.  "The  papers  have 
bored  us  to  death  with  vain  repetitions  of  your 
name.  My  young  brother  can  quote  their  stories 
verbatim.  You  will  find  yourself  a  hero  in  his 
eyes." 

"I  am  more  than  glad.  If  he  can  succeed  in 
imparting  the  impression  to  his — 'but  never  mind," 
he  broke  off. 

Her  smile  however,  was  alluringly  quick. 
"Perhaps  it  is  not  necessary  that  he  should,"  she 
said. 

He  laughed,  and  she,  fearing  that  she  had  been 
too  lenient  with  herself  and  with  him  added,  in  a 
manner  that  took  her  own  personality  completely 
out  of  the  conversation.  "Of  course  you  know 
how  lucky  you  are.  All  the  young  and  beautiful 
girls  aboard,  having  been  saved  from  sudden  death 
by  you,  owe  their  lives  to  you,  and  anyone  of 
them  you  select  is  certainly  obliged  to  marry 
you." 

"What  a  revolting  sacrifice!" 

"Not  at  all.     It  is  the  reward  you  have  earned. 


MARY  SMITH  377 

It  would  certainly  be  a  reflection  upon  them  all 
for  you  not  to  pick  out  one  of  them." 

"This  is  serious.  But,"  he  said,  suddenly,  "I 
am  already  promised." 

"In  what  way?"  she  asked,  faintly. 

"My  own  life,  you  see,  was  in  turn  saved,  and 
since  I  was  the  only  single  man  aboard,  I  am 
peculiarly  liable.  One  of  the  three  rescuers  was 
a  girl.  I  am  therefore,  by  your  reasoning,  pledged 
to  a  certain  Mary  Smith,  if  she  wants  me." 

At  this  unexpected  speech — a  hit,  as  it  were, 
wholly  in  the  dark — the  blood  rushed  to  her  face. 

"Why  do  you  blush?"  he  asked. 

"I  blush  for  your  audacity  in  thrusting  your- 
self on  the  Smith  woman,"  she  exclaimed  truth- 
fully. "However,  see  that  you  remember  your 
obligation." 

"I  have  no  fears  that  I  shall  be  held  to  it." 

"Don't  underrate  your  power  of  fascination. 
What  is  she  like — this  Mary  Smith?" 

"I  don't  know.  There  were  three  in  the  sail- 
boat. They  said  one  of  them  was  a  woman.  She 
looked  just  like  the  others — a  shapeless  thing  in  a 
rubber  coat." 

Ruth  hid  her  face  in  her  hands.  "Poor  Mary 
Smith,"  she  exclaimed,  "if  she  could  hear  you 
now." 


378          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

"Don't  misunderstand  me.  She  doubtless  is  an 
estimable  and  beautiful  woman  in  her  proper 
clothes,  but — " 

"Surely,"  she  interrupted,  "you  do  not  mean 
to  say  hers  were  improper4?" 

"In  the  sense  you  mean  they  were  proper,  but 
they  were  unusual.  But  in  her  cotton-print  dress 
and  sunbonnet,  I  have  no  doubt  she  is  all  that 
could  be  desired." 

She  made  a  grimace  that  he  did  not  understand. 

"But  why,"  he  asked,  "palm  me  off  on  poor 
defenseless  Mary?  Just  to  get  rid  of  me*?" 

"To  get  rid  of  you*?"  she  exclaimed,  smiling. 

"But  what  is  there  funny  in  that4?" 

She  looked  at  him  for  a  moment,  the  smile  com- 
ing and  going  on  her  lips  like  a  shimmer  of  sun- 
light. 

"You  see  nothing  funny  in  it,  do  you?"  she 
asked. 

"Not  at  all." 

She  sketched  little  circles  upon  the  blotter  be- 
fore her.  Then  close  to  where  the  thumb  of 
his  hand  rested  on  it  she  made  an  apex  and  drew 
a  heart. 

"It  points  to  you,"  she  murmured,  idly.  "In 
it  I  shall  write  Mary." 

"Let  me  write  it."     He  took  a  pencil  from 


MARY  SMITH  379 

the  desk.  "M"  he  said,  writing  "R,"  "A,"  writ- 
ing "U."  "R,"  writing  "T,"  "Y,"  writing  "H." 

They  both  looked  at  the  result  silently.  It 
was  amusing  while  it  was  being  made,  but  when 
it  was  finished  and  her  name  lay  there  in  its 
incriminating  frame,  there  was  no  suitable  remark 
for  either  of  them  to  make  save  words  they  did 
not  wish  to  say.  He  rose  abruptly. 

"I  am  a  poor  speller,"  he  exclaimed,  smudging 
his  thumb  across  the  word.  "That  was  a  mis- 
take." 


CHAPTER  XXX 

"THIS  is  WILLIAM  SPADE" 

When  the  noon  mail  came  that  day  there  was 
a  letter  in  it  from  Warburton,  who  was  out  of 
town  at  the  time,  in  regard  to  the  Old  Dominion 
Steel  Company.  It  was  the  first  letter  that  had 
ever  come  into  the  office  upon  that  subject,  and 
Ruth,  spreading  it  out  before  her  in  order  that 
she  might  list  and  brief  it  for  her  files,  handled 
it  as  if  it  were  unclean. 

It  would  be  good  news  for  Spade — for  it  an- 
nounced that  the  directors  of  the  steel  company 
had  agreed  to  allow  him  two  thirds  of  his  claim, 
in  order  to  settle  the  matter  out  of  court.  To 
her,  knowing  that  the  directors  were  merely 
blandly  declaring  how  much  the  employees  of 
the  company  should  give  up,  it  was  anything  but 
good  news.  The  realization  of  the  conflict  of 
views  between  the  man  and  herself  awoke  again 
her  active  distrust  of  him. 

When  Spade  returned  she  watched  him  covertly 
through  the  open  door,  as  if  to  read  the  thoughts 

380 


"THIS  IS  WILLIAM  SPADE"      381 

that  passed  through  his  mind  as  he  read  the  letter. 
But  from  his  calm  demeanor  she  gleaned  noth- 
ing. She  supposed  that  beneath  the  surface  he 
was  calm  and  happy — and  it  was  a  painful  real- 
ization. 

But  if  she  could  have  divined  the  real  thoughts 
which  obsessed  that  mind,  she  would  have  been 
filled  with  wonder.  However,  we  seldom  real- 
ize how  complicated  and  difficult  is  the  simple  and 
straightforward  course  we  lay  out  for  others. 
Spade  had  visited  his  broker  that  morning  and 
had  found  that  that  gentleman,  who  had  obligated 
himself  to  the  extent  of  some  fifteen  thousand 
dollars  more  than  the  value  of  the  securities  de- 
posited with  him  by  Spade,  was  not  a  little  un- 
easy. He  had  taken  Spade's  personal  credit  and 
resources  as  security  for  this  difference,  but  Spade's 
recent  near  approach  to  death  had  shown  the 
evanescent  character  of  such  security,  and  had 
given  him  cause  for  no  inconsiderable  alarm. 

He  had  therefore  explained  that  it  would  be 
necessary  for  Spade,  at  the  earliest  moment,  to 
furnish  tangible  security  for  the  whole  amount 
of  his  indebtedness.  The  stock  he  was  required 
to  deliver  still  showed  no  sign  of  decreasing  in 
price.  Indeed,  there  was  a  rumor  now  of  an  in- 
creased dividend  upon  it,  which  would  push  its 


382  THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

value  up  higher  and  make  his  losses  even  greater 
than  at  present.  The  broker  had  been  insistent, 
therefore,  that  he  secure  the  necessary  funds  at 
once  and  close  up  the  deal  before  he  sank  deeper 
into  debt.  There  was  no  use,  in  his  words,  in 
sending  good  money  after  bad.  The  man  who 
could  not  acknowledge  himself  beaten  when  he 
was  beaten  was  laying  himself  open  to  disaster. 

The  broker  had  thus  succeeded  in  conveying 
the  very  positive  information  that  William 
Spade's  personal  credit  was  no  longer  adequate, 
and  the  account  could  be  allowed  to  run  on  no 
longer.  In  order  to  close  the  account  there  was 
fifteen  thousand  dollars  to  be  paid  immediately. 
And  this  was  just  fifteen  thousand  dollars  more 
than  he  possessed. 

Therefore  the  letter  upon  the  desk,  saying  that 
the  Old  Dominion  Steel  Company  had  agreed  to 
the  immediate  payment  of  eighty  thousand  dol- 
lars, had  all  the  characteristics  of  a  gift  from 
Heaven.  It  swept  away  all  his  embarrassment. 
It  paid  his  indebtedness  and  left  him  with  a  sur- 
plus of  sixty-five  thousand  dollars.  Instead  of 
stripping  him  absolutely  of  all  he  owned  and  put- 
ting him  in  debt  for  a  sum  that  to  an  impover- 
ished man  would  be  little  short  of  stupendous,  it 
carried  him  smoothly  by  that  yawning  abyss  and 


"THIS  IS  WILLIAM  SPADE"      383 

placed  him  safe  and  sure  in  his  former  position 
of  ease  and  power. 

Small  wonder  that  the  single  sheet  o^  letter 
paper  before  him  was  like  a  fairy  gift1  It  took 
no  great  perspicuity  to  see  that  the  success  he 
had  had  was  begotten  by  success.  Were  he  re- 
duced to  poverty,  his  office  depleted  of  its  luxuri- 
ous furnishing,  his  automobile  sacrificed,  his  im- 
pressive apartment  abandoned,  his  power  to  pay 
the  price  for  mingling  with  people  who  needed  his 
services  cut  off;  the  making  of  his  'fifteen  or 
twenty  thousand  dollars  a  year  would  be  impos- 
sible. If,  added  to  this,  were  a  debt  that  would 
absorb  his  surplus  the  moment  it  appeared,  he 
would  be  like  a  man  pinned  down  to  earth  by 
a  great  weight.  It  would  take  years  to  rid  him- 
self of  the  encumbrance,  to  accumulate  again  his 
possessions  and  to  rebuild  his  shattered  prestige 
— years  of  the  best  part  of  his  life.  It  was  no 
pleasant  thing  to  look  forward  to  spending  those 
years  merely  in  regaining  lost  ground,  and  having 
regained  it,  to  find  himself,  the  best  part  of  his 
youth  gone,  simply  ready  to  start  in  again. 

A  bitter  prospect  it  was.  But  the  letter  upon 
his  desk,  offering  an  alternative,  was  no  pleasant 
thing.  It  lay  there  pushed  back  to  a  distant 
spot  like  something  polluted.  He  did  not  con- 


384  THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

sider  it  polluted,  for  he  was  accustomed  to  con- 
demn nothing  against  which  the  case  was  not  con- 
cise and  clear.  And  the  case  against  this  letter 
was  one  that  rested  upon  so  infirm  a  thing  as  an 
impulse — a  newly  awakened  loftiness  of  purpose 
implanted  by  the  recent  chastening  of  his  soul. 

Since,  in  the  process  of  chastening  his  soul,  he 
had  agreed  to  accept  the  assistance  of  God,  he 
was  in  return  bound  to  acknowledge  that  God, 
and  endeavor  to  act  as  He  would  desire  him  to 
act.  He  was  learning  over  again  the  things  he 
had  been  taught  in  his  youth — which  he  had 
paraphrased  and  remodelled  to  fit  his  life.  This 
new  ethics  disturbed  him.  It  left  him  hanging 
between  earth  and  sky.  What  was  a  mere  theory 
to  his  mind,  trained  as  it  was  to  turn  and  move 
only  in  the  presence  of  facts?  Suppose  he  did 
concede  that  his  life  heretofore  had  been  warped 
and  selfish  and  that  he  was  now  required  and 
bound  to  lay  out  a  new  course,  how  was  he  ac- 
tually to  lay  the  course1?  Admitting  his  respon- 
sibility to  act  in  such  a  manner  that  his  own 
success  should  not  be  purchased  by  far-reaching 
unhappiness  among  his  fellow  men,  what  of  the 
sacrilege  of  turning  his  back  upon  business  op- 
portunity? The  necessity  and  value  of  self-sac- 
rifice was  apparent.  But  should  he  give  up  his 


"THIS  IS  WILLIAM  SPADE"      385 

pride  and  his  self-reliance  by  standing  aside  in- 
stead of  reaching  out  at  the  right  moment  to  take 
his  own*? 

He  was  coming  into  contact  with  the  problem 
of  reconciling  theoretical  Christianity  with  prac- 
tical Christianity,  and  realizing  that  it  was  a 
problem  that  required  not  merely  a  moral  sense 
but  the  exercise  of  the  best  power  of  his  judg- 
ment. This  was  a  thing  he  had  never  realized 
before — that  conscience  was  at  all  dependent 
upon  mentality,  that  the  steering  of  a  clean  course 
between  disregard  and  responsibility,  upon  the 
one  hand,  and  Quixotism,  upon  the  other,  was  a 
feat  requiring  all  the  skill  of  the  ablest  navigator. 

Looking  at  it  from  this  point  of  view  he  began 
to  see  the  whole  situation  clearly.  For  the  past 
few  years  he  had  been  playing  the  game  to  win 
— at  all  costs.  When  he  had  been  in  college  he 
would  have  scorned  to  take  an  unfair  advantage  to 
gain  his  point.  He  had  been  noted  at  athletics 
for  his  scrupulous  sense  of  honor  and  justice. 
And  when  he  was  defeated  he  had  taken  it  stoi- 
cally, as  a  sportsman  should.  That  was  five  years 
ago — a  long  while,  it  seemed.  For  since  then 
he  had  lost  his  sportsmanship.  He  had  taken 
the  buffets  of  fate  with  a  bitter  heart  and  had 
sought  to  even  up  with  whatever  means  and  in 


386          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

whatever  manner  came  first  to  hand.  William 
Spade  had  deteriorated. 

The  determination  strengthened  itself  in  him 
to  regain  lost  ground — to  wipe  out  the  charge 
of  unfairness.  The  time  had  come  to  do  the  hard 
thing — to  feel  the  weight,  as  his  father  had  said, 
of  the  Ark  upon  his  shoulders.  He  was  the  grain 
of  sand — that  must  struggle  with  the  others  not 
to  be  washed  away  from  the  straight  beach,  so 
that  the  great  land  might  remain  intact. 

With  the  heroic  idea  hot  in  his  mind  he  did 
unpleasant  things  that  afternoon,  lest  it  should 
cool  before  he  had  followed  its  impulse.  It  was 
a  big  deed  he  planned.  But  the  bigger  the  deed, 
the  greater  the  proof  it  was  of  the  sincerity  of  his 
soul.  And  as  he  proceeded  about  the  work,  he 
rejoiced  in  a  certain  sombre  yet  sweeping  satisfac- 
tion in  being  right. 

Three  melancholy  things  he  did  to  test  himself 
and  to  lay  the  fuel  for  the  final  burning  of  his 
bridges.  He  visited  an  old  and  familiar  neigh- 
borhood in  the  shabby  part  of  town  he  had  once 
known  so  well,  and,  with  no  bitterness  of  spirit, 
engaged  the  same  little  dingy  room  looking  out 
upon  the  same  dingy  back  yards.  He  was  to 
be  poor  now — as  he  had  been  in  those  days — 
and  he  must  make  slender  funds  go  far.  He 


"THIS  IS  WILLIAM  SPADE"      387 

visited  an  auction  establishment  and  made  ar- 
rangements to  have  the  luxurious  and  expensive 
furnishings  of  his  apartment  and  his  office  sold. 
And,  as  a  final  touch,  he  stopped  at  his  club,  where 
he  found,  as  he  had  expected,  a  man  who  had 
some  time  before  offered  to  buy  his  automobile. 
The  man  wrote  him  a  check  and  William,  leav- 
ing the  car  at  the  curb,  walked  back  to  his  office, 
a  chastened  spirit,  a  flagellant,  yet  contented. 

The  office  was  deserted,  as  he  entered  it  at 
half  past  five.  He  sat  before  the  telephone  and 
held  the  receiver  in  his  hand,  for  a  long  while  not 
taking  it  from  its  hook.  It  was  a  momentous 
deed — and  irretrievable  when  once  done.  Then 
with  set  jaw,  he  removed  it  quickly  and  called  a 
number. 

"I  wish  to  speak  to  Mr.  Warburton,"  he  said, 
when  the  connection  was  made.  "This  is  Wil- 
liam Spade." 

There  was  a  moment  of  delay,  during  which 
the  telephone  hummed  its  meaningless  song. 

"Warburton,"  he  said,  presently,  when  the  law- 
yer had  answered — and  his  own  voice  was  as  hard 
and  metallic  as  a  steel  bar,  "write  a  letter  to  the 
Old  Dominion  Steel  Company  and  say  in  an  ab- 
solutely clear  and  irrefutable  way,  that  upon  fur- 
ther consideration  I  feel  that  I  have  no  claim  upon 


388          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

them  in  connection  with  the  stock  formerly  held 
by  the  holding  company  and  that  if  the  em- 
ployees in  the  Company  are  given  the  stock  to 
which  they  are  rightfully  entitled  I  shall  not  ex- 
pect them  to  pay  me  eighty  thousand  dollars  or 
any  part  of  it  on  that  account." 

"Man,  are  you  crazy*?"  exploded  the  other. 

"No.  I  know  what  I  am  doing.  Don't  argue 
with  me.  Send  a  copy  of  this  letter  to  the  law- 
yer who  represents  the  employees  of  the  company. 
And  telephone  me  as  soon  as  the  letters  are 
mailed." 

For  half  an  hour  he  sat  like  a  man  of  stone  in 
his  chair.  Then  the  telephone  rang  and  a  few 
commonplace  words  told  him  it  was  all  over. 
The  letters  were  mailed.  He  rose  from  his  desk 
— the  desk  that  was  no  longer  his,  and  half-dazed 
by  the  magnitude  of  his  act,  descended  to  take 
the  street-car  home — to  the  apartment  that  was 
no  longer  his,  furnished  with  the  pleasant  and 
much  loved  things  that  were  no  longer  his.  He 
was  possessed  of  nothing  at  all  now  in  all  the 
world — save  his  own  great  and  unbelievable  self- 
respect. 


CHAPTER  XXXI 

DUSK 

The  September  sun  sank  low  as  William  Spade 
sat  in  his  leather-cushioned  chair,  looking  out  un- 
seeing across  the  green  square.  The  western  sky, 
which  his  eyes  did  not  note,  flamed  red.  The 
long,  horizontal  rays  streamed  across  the  room 
and  fell  caressingly  upon  the  gorgeous  Chinese 
embroidery  on  the  opposite  wall — the  sleeve  of 
a  Mandarin's  coat.  They  moved  searchingly 
over  the  wall  as  if  glancing  for  the  last  time  at 
each  treasure  and  hanging,  which  might  not  be 
there  on  the  morrow.  Fainter  and  fainter  grew 
their  radiance  until  suddenly  they  vanished  from 
the  wall  and  went  on  upon  their  endless  journey 
around  the  earth.  Dusk  came  quickly  over  the 
city  and  then  the  darkness  of  a  starlit  night  neu- 
tralized by  the  glow  of  the  street-lamps  below. 
All  dark  were  the  rooms  he  called  home.  It  was 
a  melancholy  thing  to  leave  them — to  leave  the 
things  that  for  the  past  few  years  he  had  called 

389 


390          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

life.  But  he  felt  no  regret.  There  was  no  step 
of  the  day  he  would  not  have  retaken. 

As  he  sat  there  a  greater  cause  for  sadness 
was  brought  him — though  not  an  unexpected 
thing  nor  one  that  he  felt  could  have  been  post- 
poned for  long,  but  nevertheless  a  cause  of  sad- 
ness. When  he  received  the  message,  almost  his 
first  thought  was  of  stern  satisfaction  that  he 
had  done  the  thing  his  father  would  have  wished 
hirp  to  do.  He  had  done  the  hard  thing — he  had 
taken  the  Ark  from  the  cart  and  bore  it  now  on 
his  shoulders.  The  yellow  message  he  held  in 
his  hands  told  of  the  serious  and  apparently  the 
last  illness  of  William  Spade,  Senior.  And,  ex- 
pected as  it  had  been,  it  came  as  a  shock  to  him 
— a  shock  that  swept  from  his  spirit  all  the  lean- 
ing toward  bitterness  that  came  as  a  result  of  his 
recent  act. 

There  were  many  things  to  be  done  before  he 
could  leave  the  city  at  midnight.  He  sat  again 
at  the  desk  in  his  office  writing  certain  letters  and 
framing  a  note,  bristling  with  instructions,  to 
Ruth.  With  almost  no  emotion  he  hurried  a 
letter  to  his  brokers  telling  them  to  buy  Consoli- 
dated Steel  at  the  market  price  to  cover  his  un- 
fortunate speculation.  In  the  note  he  explained 
that  the  sale  of  his  effects  and  the  money  he 


DUSK  391 

would  be  able  to  borrow  upon  his  life  insurance 
would  provide  ten  thousand  dollars  against  the 
present  shortage  of  fifteen  thousand.  For  the 
additional  five  thousand  he  would  give  his  per- 
sonal note  which  he  would  pay  at  the  earliest 
possible  moment. 

When  he  had  finished  these,  finding  there  were 
no  postage  stamps  in  the  usual  drawer  or  that 
Ruth  had  changed  the  place  where  they  were  kept, 
he  put  the  letters  he  had  written  upon  her  desk, 
to  be  mailed  in  the  morning — except  the  one  to 
the  brokers,  which  he  decided  to  carry  with  him,  as 
it  was  necessary  that  it  be  mailed  that  evening  so 
that  the  order  might  be  placed  before  the  open- 
ing of  the  Exchange  in  the  morning. 

He  laid  the  letter  upon  his  desk.  Then  some- 
thing impelled  him  to  write  upon  the  sheet  which 
contained  the  instructions  for  Ruth,  a  few  more 
lines.  She  was  the  only  person  in  the  world  in 
whom  he  wished  to  confide  when  he  was  in  trouble. 
He  had  thought  at  first  he  would  not  speak  of  his 
personal  affairs  to  her,  but  found  that  it  was  im- 
possible for  him  to  go  away  without  telling  her 
that  it  was  his  father's  serious  illness  that  was  the 
cause  of  his  going  and  explaining,  in  a  few  awk- 
wardly put  but  gloriously  sincere  words  that 
though  he  had  been  expecting  this  for  a  long  while 


392  THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

and  knowing  it  must  come,  yet  now  when  it  came 
he  was  unprepared  for  it.  He  was  certain  that 
to  the  end  of  his  life  he  would  always  be  expect- 
ing to  hear  from  his  father  as  one  alive,  that  he 
would  be  expecting  to  go  to  him  and  ask  him  his 
advice — that  after  he  was  dead  he  would  never  be- 
lieve he  could  be  gone. 

He  used  up  more  of  his  remaining  time  than 
he  should  have  in  doing  this.  But  if  that  letter 
were  full  of  love  for  his  father  it  was  full  of  love 
also  for  her.  His  eyes  were  moist  with  tears  as 
he  finished  it.  But  he  had  little  chance  to  think 
of  what  was  in  his  heart.  He  seized  his  hand- 
bag and  hurried  for  the  car.  Thirty  minutes  later 
he  rolled  out  of  the  station  upon  the  heavy  train 
of  Pullmans.  And  the  letter  to  his  brokers  lay 
upon  his  desk. 


CHAPTER  XXXII 

A    BEAUTIFUL    WORLD 

The  early  morning  was  crisp  with  the  unaccus- 
tomed chill  of  September.  The  clear  air  revealed 
the  far  depths  of  the  solid  blue  sky,  long  hidden 
behind  the  humid  mist  of  summer.  William's 
footsteps  echoed  down  the  still  streets,  unpeopled 
save  for  a  single  workman  with  Stillson  wrenches 
in  his  hand  who  nodded  to  him  with  the  free- 
masonry of  one  early  riser  to  another. 

These  streets  upon  which  he  now  trod  were 
the  haunts  of  his  early  boyhood — pathetically 
shrunken  somehow  from  his  memory  of  them. 
This  comparatively  narrow  street  was  the  im- 
pressive broad  one  of  his  recollection.  Over  there 
the  dingy,  squalid  stable  was  the  same  place,  un- 
changed, whose  odor — whose  perfume  rather — of 
horses  and  harness,  had  stirred  his  young  imagina- 
tion, whose  size  and  magnificence  had  then  seemed 
almost  unattainable.  It  seemed,  too,  an  unneces- 
sary sacrilege  that  the  drug  store  at  the  corner 

393 


394          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

— the  meridian  and  equator  of  the  boyish  geogra- 
phy— where  he  and  his  companions  had  spent 
their  infrequent  pennies  and  in  the  light  shining 
through  whose  red  and  green  vases,  they  had 
basked  pleasantly  in  the  dusk — should  now  be 
occupied  by  an  impossibly  drab  dying  and  clean- 
ing establishment.  Or  that  the  open  lot  upon 
whose  tiny  turf  they  had  played  a  constricted 
sort  of  baseball  should  now  be  obliterated  by  a 
neat  brick  structure  wherein,  unmindful  of  the 
affront  he  offered  to  sentimental  memories,  plied 
his  trade  a  creature  nominated  upon  his  sign  as 
a  Merchant  Tailor. 

As  William  swung  around  this  corner,  he  came 
into  view  of  his  father's  house — the  old  house  in 
which  he  was  born.  Each  time  he  saw  it  thus, 
among  all  the  changing  surroundings,  it  seemed 
not  to  have  changed  at  all.  Its  marble  steps  were 
snowy  white,  its  brick  front  was  painted  as  of 
yore  with  shining  red  paint  in  imitation  of  brick, 
and  the  thin  mortar  joints  between,  still  further 
to  carry  out  the  semblance,  were  lined  with  white 
paint  in  imitation  of  mortar,  so  that  the  general 
effect  was  as  of  a  piece  of  stage  scenery  repre- 
senting a  brick  house.  This  had  always  been  con- 
sidered in  the  community  as  the  spruce  and  neat 
thing  to  do,  and  the  failure  to  apply  the  disguise 


A  BEAUTIFUL  WORLD  395 

at  the  proper  time  was  a  sign  of  general  shift- 
lessness. 

He  pulled  the  white-handled  bell  knob  project- 
ing from  the  wooden  jamb,  which  started  a  rever- 
berating jingle  somewhere  in  the  bowels  of  the 
house.  A  potent  memory  rose  as  the  tintinabula- 
tion  began,  for  he  remembered  that  in  other  days 
it  had  been  necessary  to  run  the  instant  such  a 
deed  had  been  accomplished. 

The  house  within  was  unchanged — the  marble 
topped  table  in  the  hall  with  its  bell-jar  encasing 
the  same  wax  flowers,  the  same  gilt-framed  mirror 
over  it  supported  upon  a  nail  the  head  of  which 
was  adorned  and  enriched  by  the  same  pearl-white 
button.  His  early  impression  of  the  magnificence 
and  grandeur  of  this  ensemble,  all  his  sophistica< 
tion  had  never  been  entirely  able  to  dispel. 

In  the  hall  dwelt  the  same  familiar  odor,  com- 
ing perhaps  from  the  reminiscence  of  camphor 
balls  in  the  hangings,  or  from  the  balsam  pillow 
which  adorned  the  haircloth  sofa  in  the  parlor 
or  from  the  chintz  colored  cedar  chest  in  the  up- 
per hall  or  from  a  combination  of  them  all.  It 
made  him  feel,  at  any  rate,  that  it  was  but  yes- 
terday that  he  was  a  small  boy  tobogganing  down 
those  padded  stairs  upon  his  mother's  ironing 
board. 


396          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

He  ascended  the  steps  now,  his  footfalls  making 
no  sound — into  the  well-remembered  semi-dark- 
ness. Waiting  for  him  at  the  top  was  his  mother 
— a  little  thinner,  a  little  grayer  but  not  appar- 
ently older  than  the  lady  who  fifteen  years  be- 
fore used  to  await  him  there.  When  he  stood 
upon  the  step  next  to  the  top,  she  put  her  arms 
about  him  and  held  him  in  her  tight,  silent  em- 
brace. No  words  came  to  her  lips  to  express  the 
towering  emotions  in  her.  The  comfort  of  his 
presence  was  what  was  in  her  mind  and  that  was 
not  an  idea,  to  be  spoken  of  in  words,  but  a  mirac- 
ulous blessing,  which  gave  new  life  to  her  wearied 
body  and  soul. 

The  sick  man  lay  upon  the  familiar  carved  wal- 
nut bedstead.  His  thin,  white  hand  rested  life- 
lessly upon  the  counterpane.  His  eyes,  unheed- 
ing, stared  steadily  before  him  as  if  already  he 
were  seeing  visions  not  of  this  world.  William's 
eyes  clouded  as  he  bent  over  and  laid  his  strong 
hand  upon  the  white,  shrunken  one. 

A  light  of  recognition  shone  suddenly  in  the 
eyes  and  consciousness,  summoning  its  strength, 
broke  through  its  enshrouding  curtain.  The  old, 
happy  buoyant  smile  appeared  for  a  moment  upon 
the  sick  man's  lips. 

"Lift  me  up,  son,"  he  said. 


A  BEAUTIFUL  WORLD  397 

William  raised  him  to  a  sitting  position  and, 
supporting  him  there  with  a  strong  arm  and  shoul- 
der pressed  against  him,  watched  him  intently, 
wonderingly.  The  elder  Spade,  lovingly,  almost 
wistfully,  stared  out  at  the  gold  light  on  the  world 
without — on  the  sturdy  tree  that  he  as  a  young 
man  had  planted  by  the  sidewalk,  which  had 
grown  and  prospered,  keeping  pace  with  him,  as 
he  had  grown  and  prospered.  But  now  it  was 
in  its  very  prime,  while  he,  no  longer  its  con- 
temporary, had  come  in  sight  of  the  end.  Then 
with  a  sigh  he  asked  to  be  put  down  again  upon 
his  pillow,  where  he  lay  breathing  heavily. 

"It  is  a  beautiful  world,"  he  murmured,  weakly, 
"a  beautiful  world." 

A  beautiful  world.  Those  old,  unwearied  eyes 
were  looking  forward  and  backward  from  this 
point  where  his  soul  prepared  to  change  habita- 
tions and  seeing  in  each  direction  a  vision  only  of 
happiness — the  prospect  of  the  world  to  come  and 
the  memory  of  the  world  that  was  past.  And  yet 
the  world  that  he  was  leaving  had  buffetted  him 
roughly  and  crushed  his  fondest  hopes.  It  was 
a  glorious  fact  that,  having  suffered  more  than 
his  share  of  adversity  and  disappointment,  the 
only  thought  that  occurred  to  him  looking  back 
was  that  it  had  been  a  beautiful  place.  What 


398          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

more  potent  certificate  for  admission  to  Heaven 
than  to  carry  with  him  such  a  memory  of  the  place 
where  he  had  been  tried  in  the  fire — and  not  found 
wanting. 

From  then  on  until  dusk  gathered,  William  and 
his  mother  watched  the  one-time  powerful  ma- 
chine slowly  running  down.  The  labored  breath- 
ing, hoarse  and  echoing  grimly  in  the  room,  slowly 
decreased  as  the  darkness  drew  about  them.  Un- 
til at  length  just  as  the  distant  pleasant  chimes 
he  loved  to  hear  were  striking  the  hour,  it  merged 
quietly,  almost  imperceptibly  into  silence. 


CHAPTER  XXXIII 

THE    LETTER 

As  soon  as  there  was  a  moment  of  leisure — 
and  that  did  not  come  until  the  household  had 
retired  to  their  rooms,  William  wrote  a  letter  to 
the  person  who  came  first  in  his  thoughts,  to 
whom,  depressed  now  by  the  silence  of  the  gloomy 
house,  he  turned  instinctively  for  comfort.  It 
was  the  reaching-out  of  one  yearning  to  unburden 
his  soul,  who  nevertheless,  confronted  with  cold 
paper,  gropes  for  the  words. 

"Mv  DEAR  RUTH  : 

"My  father  died  this  evening.  With  him 
passed  out  of  my  life  an  influence  I  thought  was 
retarding  me,  but  which  was  in  fact  uplifting  me. 
He  represented  the  spirit  of  a  by-gone  genera- 
tion, while  I  have  been  absorbing  the  spirit  of 
this  very  present  generation.  I  have  heard  it 
said  that  my  father  was  short-sighted  and  over- 
trusting — one  man  said  stupid — I  see  now  that  it 
was  to  his  credit  that  he  was  so.  He  was  honest 

399 


400  THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

and  fair-playing  in  the  midst  of  a  tribe  who  made 
money  upon  the  misfortunes  or  the  mishaps  of 
others — the  same  who  lately  have  been  speculating 
in  and  cornering  food  products  until  they  have 
forced  the  public  to  pay  out  higher  prices,  who 
rolled  up  their  sleeves  when  war  broke  out  in 
Europe  and  turned  it  callously  into  a  money  mak- 
ing occurrence.  It  was  they  who,  discovering 
South  America  deprived  of  European  trade,  de- 
scended in  hordes  upon  Brazil  and  Argentina, 
whom  they  conceived  to  be  in  hard  straits.  They 
took  orders  for  first  class  goods  on  rapid  delivery, 
and  shipped  third  class  goods  when  they  were 
ready.  They  have  made  the  name  of  America 
stand  for  misrepresentation  and  fraud  and  short- 
change methods  throughout  the  world.  They 
have  set  up  a  figure  of  Uncle  Sam  as  a  senile  old 
man,  grasping  and  miserly,  with  ice-water  instead 
of  blood  in  his  veins. 

"My  father  came  of  the  generation  that  still  re- 
membered the  clipper  ships  and  the  world-wide 
reputation  of  American  thrift  and  fairness.  He 
stood  for  this  idea,  and  I  did  not  know  it.  It  took 
you,  who  stand  in  my  mind  for  the  same  things, 
and  one  other  of  whom  I  shall  tell  you,  to  reveal 
it  to  me. 

"And  now  I  know  that  with  the  sturdiness  of 


THE  LETTER  401 

the  old  generation  went  a  certain  trust  in  God, 
and  with  the  careless  self -sufficiency  of  the  new 
generation  goes  a  feeling  that  God  is  unnecessary. 
The  need  of  religion  and  faith  comes  with  ad- 
versity, which  we  as  a  nation  have  not  had  for 
fifty  years.  It  took  a  personal  adversity  to  make 
this  apparent  to  me. 

"I  tell  you  this  because  I  should  like  you  to 
know  that  my  ideas  are  changing.  I  understand 
that  I  have  been  following  the  wrong  influences. 
It  is  an  overpowering  realization  and  one  that 
leaves  me  not  a  little  upset  as  to  myself.  But 
I  do  know  now  that  I  have  been  sailing  toward  the 
wrong  beacon.  Whether  I  shall  be  able  to  shape 
my  life.  .  .  .  But  that  is  the  problem  now  before 
me. 


CHAPTER  XXXIV 

THE    ANSWER 

To  Ruth  Dunbar,  reading  the  letter  late  the 
following  day,  his  mind  and  heart  were  clear. 

She  could  not  but  harbor  a  compelling  pride 
in  the  fact  that  she  should  be  the  one  person 
to  be  admitted  to  close  communion  with  him. 
It  was  a  distinction  whose  realization  thrilled 
her  until  she  seemed  to  feel  the  quickened  blood 
in  her  veins.  But  that  was  not  her  greatest 
emotion.  It  was  rather  a  motherly  concern  for 
his  happiness  and  peace  of  mind. 

She  wished  for  power  to  render  him  comfort. 
She  took  his  sorrow  over  into  her  own  life,  as  if 
it  were  her  right  and  prerogative  to  suffer  when 
he  suffered.  The  grief  which  now  had  come  to 
him  drew  her  to  him  with  an  unexpected  force. 
It  seemed  as  if  the  old  state  of  affairs,  in  which 
his  life  touched  hers  at  but  a  few  points  and  at 
all  others  went  about  concerns  that  had  nothing 
to  do  with  her,  was  gone.  His  life  ran  now 

parallel  to  hers  everywhere,  and  all  its  concerns 

402 


THE  ANSWER  403 

were  her  concerns.  In  fact  his  joys  and  sorrows, 
she  began  to  realize,  were  more  important  to  her 
than  her  own. 

The  realization  of  this  was  beatific.  For  the 
moment  it  seemed  to  raise  her  out  of  the  mere 
world.  The  simple  sincerity  of  his  letters,  ex- 
plaining in  homely  fashion  how  much  his  father's 
life  had  meant  to  him,  gave  her  a  clear  view  into 
his  heart,  and  she  felt  now  that  it  was  a  big,  strong 
heart,  with  no  evil  intent  in  it.  If  he  were 
in  the  wrong  it  was  because  he  had  made  the 
wrong  diagnosis  of  life — because  he  had  drawn 
wrong  conclusions  concerning  the  world  and  its 
people.  She  no  longer  saw  virtue  in  standing 
aloof  from  him,  convinced  that  what  he  needed 
most  was  her  assistance.  And,  believing  that  his 
warping  was  mental  rather  than  moral,  she  found 
herself  in  a  frame  of  mind  to  give  that  assistance. 
What  right  had  she,  she  thought,  to  judge  him 
for  a  misdeed,  when  he  had  not  judged  her  for 
her  own  misdeeds'?  She  was  not  a  perfect  per- 
son. Why  should  she  expect  perfection  of  him1? 
The  heart  within  was  the  thing  she  must  con- 
sider. For  the  rest,  it  was  a  surpassing  joy  for  her 
to  think  that  he  needed  the  clear  moral  insight 
that  nature  had  given  her,  and  had  clouded,  at 
least  temporarily,  for  him.  The  mother  instinct 


4<H  THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

was  strong  in  her.  She  loved  him,  and  he  needed 
her — it  swept  away  all  obstacles.  Moreover,  he 
needed  her  most  now  when  his  greatest  friend  and 
counselor  had  left  him. 

With  all  these  thoughts  running  excitedly 
through  her  brain,  she  took  a  sheet  of  paper  from 
the  drawer  beside  her  and  endeavored  to  write 
them  in  a  letter  to  him.  But  that  composition, 
when  she  reread  it,  did  not  express  the  comfort 
and  sympathy  she  was  so  eager  to  send.  It  was 
cold.  It  was  a  mere  letter — ink  upon  paper — 
instead  of  the  assurance  of  the  new  fellowship, 
whose  strength  and  responsiveness  to  the  confi- 
dence he  had  placed  in  her,  she  wished  him  to 
know.  But  how  could  she,  who  was  no  trained 
writer,  express  this  without  seeming  weak  or  else 
strained.  It  was  a  subject  too  near  her  heart. 
She  destroyed  the  sheet.  She  would  let  the  mat- 
ter mellow  in  her  mind,  and,  in  the  morning,  per- 
haps the  words  would  come  to  her. 

The  morning  brought,  not  words,  but  concerns 
of  the  office,  which  kept  her  busy.  Very  early  in 
the  day  there  arrived  by  messenger  a  heavy  ma- 
nilla  envelope,  quite  fatly  filled,  marked  with 
much  emphasis,  "Personal,"  and  bearing  Warbur- 
ton's  name  printed  in  the  upper  left-hand  corner. 
She  called  up  the  lawyer's  office  immediately  to 


THE  ANSWER  405 

explain  that  Spade  was  away  and  to  ask  whether 
the  papers  in  the  envelope  were  urgent  and  what 
should  be  done  about  them.  But  Warburton 
was  also  out  of  town.  No  one  in  his  office  knew 
about  the  matter  except  that  he  had  left  .very 
explicit  instructions  to  have  the  packet  delivered 
the  first  thing  in  the  morning. 

Ruth  was  considerably  disturbed.  There  was 
no  way  of  telling  whether  it  was  a  matter  that 
demanded  immediate  attention  or  not.  She  was 
unwilling  to  forward  it  to  Spade,  who,  she  was 
certain,  ought  not  to  be  bothered  with  such  mat- 
ters unless  it  was  certain  they  could  not  wait. 
If  it  had  been  urgent,  Warburton  should  have 
telephoned  to  find  out  whether  her  employer 
would  be  there  to  give  it  his  attention.  There- 
fore, although  not  without  some  uneasiness,  she 
laid  the  brown  envelope  upon  his  desk  to  await 
his  coming. 

In  doing  this,  she  made  a  discovery,  which 
brought  her  face  to  face  with  another  problem. 
She  discovered,  under  some  papers  which  had 
hitherto  hidden  it  from  her,  a  letter  addressed  in 
Spade's  handwriting  to  his  brokers.  She  was  con- 
versant enough  with  stock  transactions  to  know 
that  such  a  letter  could  not  but  be  important, 
especially  if  he  were  now  under  the  impression 


406          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

that  it  had  been  mailed.  A  moment  of  hesita- 
tion— and  she  ripped  it  open.  From  the  num- 
ber of  shares  mentioned,  she  saw  it  was  an  order 
involving  many  thousand  dollars.  In  his  haste, 
Spade  had  forgotten  it — and  the  consequences 
might  be  serious. 

She  telephoned  to  the  broker  and  made  an  ap- 
pointment with  him  to  see  her  immediately.  Ar- 
riving there,  she  laid  the  letter  before  him  and 
explained  the  circumstances. 

Mr.  LeFevre  drummed  upon  the  arms  of  his 
chair.  "It  is  difficult  to  advise  you  in  this  case," 
he  said. 

"Would  Mr.  Spade  naturally  wish  the  order 
to  be  carried  out,  in  your  opinion*?" 

"It  is  a  matter  of  judgment.  Under  present 
conditions,  whatever  I  should  advise  might  lay  me 
open  to  censure  later  on." 

Ruth  hesitated.  "Has  something  happened 
since  he  wrote  this?" 

The  broker  glanced  at  the  date.  "Very  much," 
he  observed.  He  made  a  quick,  crisp  explanation 
of  an  unexpected  turn  of  events.  Ruth,  to  whom 
the  details  of  the  affair  were  unknown,  was  taken 
aback  by  the  statement. 

"But,"  continued  the  broker,  "as  to  whether  to 


THE  ANSWER  407 

buy  now  or  to  wait  for  further  developments,  only 
Mr.  Spade  can  decide." 

Only  Mr.  Spade  could  decide.  This  was  too 
important  for  him  not  to  be  informed  of  it  at 
once.  She  must  telegraph  him.  At  the  same 
time  she  could  mention  the  envelope  from  his 
lawyer.  She  reflected,  however,  that  this  fact 
would  mean  nothing  to  him.  She  decided  not 
to  mention  it.  She  wrote  out  the  message.  It 
took  many  words  to  explain  and  the  telegram  was 
rather  incoherent  after  she  had  written  it.  In  the 
end  she  did  not  send  it. 

The  simplest  manner  of  caring  for  the  matter 
might  have  been  to  send  him  the  papers  from 
Warburton  by  registered  mail  and  simply  tele- 
graph that  his  letter  to  the  stock-brokers  had  not 
been  mailed  and  the  order  therefore  not  executed. 
In  a  cool,  calm  and  merely  efficient  moment,  she 
might  have  decided  to  do  this.  But  she  was  not 
now  calm  nor  cool  nor  merely  efficient.  She  was 
thinking  of  many  things,  and  the  two  reasons,  fur- 
nished by  the  packet  from  Warburton  and  by  the 
forgotten  letter,  were  a  plausible  excuse  for  the 
conclusion  that  her1  personal  presence  was'  re- 
quired— an  excuse  that  avoided  the  issue  of  hav- 
ing to  admit  the  third  and  real  reason. 


THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

There  was  a  train  at  twelve-thirty  which  would 
take  her,  give  her  three  hours  in  the  city  where 
he  was,  and  permit  her  to  be  home  before  ten 
o'clock  that  night.  She  tried  to  believe  it  was 
the  business  matter  that  was  urgent  but  scarcely 
succeeded — for  other  things  occupied  so  broad  a 
space  in  her  heart. 


CHAPTER  XXXV 

RUTH    TAKES    OFF    HER    HAT 

In  the  waning  afternoon,  as  the  mellow  autumn 
sun  was  beginning  to  drop  toward  his  unpic- 
turesque  horizon  of  chimneys  and  tin  roofs  and 
the  houses  on  the  east  side  of  the  street,  catch- 
ing the  flood  of  his  golden  light,  were  transformed 
for  the  moment  into  glowing  gorgeous  structures, 
picturesque  as  no  man  had  intended  them  to  be, 
Ruth  found  herself  walking  in  a  strange  city,  her 
heart  beating  almost  audibly  beneath  the  corn- 
colored  silk  coat,  as  she  searched  among  the  sun- 
lit structures  for  the  house  whose  number  was 
graven  on  her  mind.  A  disconcerting  feeling  of 
being  about  to  make  a  courting  call  disturbed  her 
equilibrium.  A  sense  of  humiliation  enveloped 
her — but  it  was  a  pleasurable  and  exciting  humili- 
ation— a  self-abasement  full  of  thrills. 

She  had  telegraphed  him  that  she  was  coming, 
but  had  purposely  named  no  train  so  that  he 
would  not  meet  her  at  the  station.  As  she  put 
her  foot  upon  that  first  step,  the  walnut  door 

409 


410          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

swung  open  and  a  smiling,  sturdy  creature  stepped 
forward  to  meet  her,  seizing  both  her  hands  with 
a  gentle  firmness  that  sent  a  glow  over  her  whole 
body.  Very  near  he  was,  even  in  that  bright 
street,  to  gathering  her  up,  unbidden,  into  his 
arms.  It  took  but  one  glance  into  his  eyes  to 
read  it  there — and  resentment  and  anger  and  dis- 
appointment were  the  things  that  were  not  in  her 
heart  because  of  it. 

The  door  closed  behind  them,  and  he  was  still 
holding  her  hands,  looking  down  into  her  face. 
There  were  tears — strange  symptoms — perilously 
close  to  the  surface  in  his  eyes.  He  Winked  rap- 
idly, terribly  embarrassed  lest  he  should  lose  his 
composure,  and  not  quite  knowing  why  the  mere 
experience  of  seeing  her  should  have  broken  him 
up — not  realizing  that  he  had  been  furnishing 
cheerfulness  and  comfort  for  his  mother  through 
trying  hours  and  that  subconsciously  he  had  been 
craving  the  same  thing  himself — and  that  there 
was  only  one  human  who  could  give  it  to  him. 

The  hidden  tears  were  stirring  eloquence  to  her. 
They  made  transparent  the  windows  of  his  soul. 
She  did  not  realize  that  her  two  gloved  hands, 
clasped  tightly  together,  were  held  in  his  strong 
grip,  any  more  than  if  that  were  their  usual  posi- 
tion when  he  spoke  to  her.  She  was  transcended. 


RUTH  TAKES  OFF  HER  HAT    411 

She  seemed  no  longer  to  be  the  plain,  work-a-day 
Ruth  Dunbar,  but  a  new  person  whose  feet  rested 
upon  a  cloud  and  whose  heart  throbbed  with  hap- 
piness. 

"My  mother,"  she  heard  him  saying,  "is  asleep 
now.  She  will  come  down  presently.  Mean- 
while, you  must  take  off  your  hat." 

Her  eyes  met  his.  "I  shall  need  my  hands 
for  that." 

That  made  it  doubly  hard  for  him  to  give 
them  up.  He  attempted  to  carry  them  to  his  lips. 

"Not  my  glove,"  she  whispered.  The  color 
surging  to  her  face,  she  stripped  off  the  offending 
covering,  and  felt  his  lips  upon  her  fingers.  She 
dared  not  meet  his  glance,  but  turned  away  from 
him,  disconcerted  by  the  turmoil  in  her. 

He  took  the  coat  as  she  slipped  it  from  her 
shoulders.  Standing  before  the  gilt-framed  mir- 
ror, she  raised  her  hands  above  her  head  to  unpin 
the  small  turban-like  hat.  It  was  an  important 
and  appealing  thing  to  him  to  have  her  there  tak- 
ing off  her  hat  in  the  house  which  was  full  of 
so  many  unfading  memories  of  his  boyhood.  It 
was  symbolic — as  if  by  that  ceremony,  she  agreed 
that  it  was  necessary  for  her  to  visit  the  place 
because  it  did  contain  memories  of  him.  She 
seemed  to  feel  his  thoughts  and,  having  cast  a 


412  THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

covert  glance  at  his  reflection  in  the  mirror,  turned 
her  head  to  meet  his  glance.  He  moved  toward 
her  until  his  shoulder  touched  lightly  against 
her. 

"I  appreciated  your  letters,"  she  said,  in  a  low 
tone. 

"I  would  have  given  anything  to  have  seen 
you  on  either  of  the  last  two  days,"  he  said  sim- 
ply. "I  wanted  you." 

The  significance  of  the  speech — just  words — 
was  nothing  to  them.  They  had  mounted  to  high 
places,  unassisted  by  speeches.  It  did  not  seem 
epochal  to  him  merely  to  say  that  he  wanted  her, 
for  that  was  the  great  salient  fact  of  his  life.  To 
have  him  say  it  did  not  thrill  her  more  than  she 
had  already  been  thrilled,  because  it  was  not 
alone  the  fact  that  he  wanted  her  which  filled  her 
with  content,  but  the  fact  that  she  had  already 
decided  that  she  was  right  in  wanting  him. 

"Why  was  I  not  lucky  enough,"  she  whispered, 
willing  to  say  anything,  "to  come  at  one  of  the 
times  when  you  wanted  me?" 

"You  could  not  have  avoided  it."  All  at- 
tempt at  originality  or  of  thoughtful  speech  van- 
ished now.  They  followed  a  beaten  path — worn 
smooth  by  many  thousand  feet,  heading  toward 


RUTH  TAKES  OFF  HER  HAT     413 

the  almost  unbelievable  goal  where  was  writ  the 
promise  of  eternal  happiness. 

"You  want  me — always*?"  she  murmured. 

His  hand  was  now  upon  her  further  shoulder. 
The  ancient  mirror  that  had  seen  him  in  most  of 
the  epochs  of  his  life,  beginning  with  his  first 
descent  from  the  floor  above  in  the  arms  of  his 
nurse,  saw  now  what  it  certainly  would  have  con- 
sidered, had  it  been  given  it  to  consider,  the  great 
climax. 

"Always,"  was  the  single  word  it  might  have 
heard  him  say.  After  that  magic  sesame,  it  saw 
presently  white  arms  about  his  neck  and  a  red- 
brown  head  upon  his  shoulder  resting  unmoving — 
overcome  by  a  little  bit  of  shame  and  a  great  deal 
of  stirring  happiness. 

During  the  moments  that  they  stood  there,  time 
and  place  existed  not  at  all  for  them.  The  pub- 
licity of  the  hallway  brought  no  confusion  to 
them.  In  fact,  they  were  not  realizing  that  the 
world  contained  other  breathing  human  beings 
than  themselves.  Whether  this  finally  did  oc- 
cur to  them  or  whether  a  gracious  and  invisible 
Providence  simply  moved  them  on  to  more  ap- 
propriate places,  was  not  clear  in  retrospection. 
Ruth,  however,  presently  did  find  herself  sitting 


4H          THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

upon  the  slippery  hair-cloth  sofa  in  the  parlor, 
looking  and  feeling  in  that  precentennial  atmos- 
phere, like  a  quaint  old  daguerreotype  come  to 
life. 

She  drew  her  arm  through  his  and  gazed  with 
an  almost  child-like  interest  at  the  strange  objects 
in  the  room — the  old  print  of  Shakespeare  and 
his  friends  in  a  monumental  gold  frame;  a  cun- 
ningly wrought  sampler  whose  quaint  subject  was 
a  map  in  several  colors  showing  the  extent  of  the 
Union  in  1847;  a  lock  of  hair  in  a  velvet  frame; 
a  marble  clock  on  a  marble  mantel,  and  a  marble- 
topped  table  with  a  Rogers  group  upon  it.  Con- 
cerning these  she  asked  innumerable  questions,  in- 
terrupting without  apology  his  perusal  of  the 
papers  in  the  big  brown  envelope  which  she  had 
brought  him.  If  he  did  not  reply  she  scarcely 
noticed. 

He  stopped  suddenly  to  look  squarely  into 
the  blithe,  smiling  face.  "But  you  had  not  seen 
these,"  he  asserted,  with  a  grave  wonder.  They 
were  the  papers  and  correspondence  upon  the 
subject  of  his  case  against  the  Old  Dominion  Steel 
Company,  among  them  a  copy  of  the  last  letter  he 
had  written  to  the  Company,  repudiating  his 
claim. 

"No.     I  hadn't  seen  them.     "Why4?" 


RUTH  TAKES  OFF  HER  HAT     415 

"I  don't  understand.  Why  are  you  sitting 
there  with  your  hand  upon  my  arm,  then"?  For 
a  piece  of  wrong  doing  of  mine,  you  once  said  I 
could  not  be  considered  as  a — possible  husband 
for  you." 

The  smiling  eyes  grew  serious.  "I  have  grown 
older  and  wiser,"  she  said,  slowly.  "I  am  not 
your  judge.  I  am  simply  the  woman  who  loves 
you.  I  believe  the  heart  in  there,"  laying  her 
hand  lightly  on  his  coat,  "is  big  and  strong  and 
true.  It  will  do  what  it  thinks  is  right." 

He  struggled  with  a  choking  in  his  throat.  "I 
shall  try,"  he  said  unsteadily,  "to  deserve  your 
confidence." 

He  found  that  that  was  all  that  he  could  say. 
He  simply  held  her  tightly  to  him,  a  great  pride 
and  joy  welling  up  in  his  breast  at  the  mark  of 
her  simple  faith  in  him.  It  was  a  joy  that  words 
could  only  have  belittled.  He  held  her  until  at 
length  she  pushed  back  from  him  with  hands  upon 
his  shoulders  and  turned  a  smiling  face  up  to  his. 
But  her  eyes  too  were  bright  with  tears. 

She  could  keep  her  other  piece  of  information 
from  him  no  more.  His  face  clouded,  like  a 
man  drawn  into  another  world,  when  she  men- 
tioned the  letter  to  the  broker.  She  explained 
that  he  had  forgotten  to  mail  it  and  she  had  had 


416  THE  CRESTING  WAVE 

an  interview  with  Mr.  LeFevre  upon  the  sub- 
ject. Had  he  seen  a  newspaper  in  the  last  two 
days?  No.  Then  she  would  have  pleasant  in- 
formation for  him.  His  steel  stock  had  had  a 
spectacular  drop.  In  the  words  of  the  broker,  in- 
stead of  losing  his  last  penny,  he  would  save  out 
of  the  situation  more  than  thirty  thousand  dol- 
lars ! 

William  was  dazed.  He  rose  and  walked  up 
and  down  the  room. 

"After  all,"  he  said  at  length,  when  words 
came  to  him,  "blind  Providence  is  a  better  care- 
taker for  a  man's  business  than  his  own  vaunted 
foresight." 

What  a  creed  for  you,  William  Spade,  who 
but  a  short  time  back  had  spoken  of  man's  own 
invincible  power! 

He  told  her  then  of  the  events  that  had  led 
up  to  the  writing  of  the  letter  to  the  brokers — 
his  decision  to  give  up  the  claim  against  the  Steel 
Company,  his  consequent  prospect  of  straitened 
circumstances,  and  his  endeavor  to  clear  the  slate 
of  as  many  obligations  as  possible  so  that  he 
might  start  anew.  It  was  a  story  full  of  straight- 
forward heroism,  but  he  told  it  haltingly,  em- 
barrassed at  the  magnitude  of  it  and  its  results. 
And  she,  feeling  that  it  was  now  her  own  vicarious 


RUTH  TAKES  OFF  HER  HAT     417 

act,  restrained  her  joy  and  pride  in  it  and  in 
him.  It  did  not  occur  to  her  to  congratulate 
him  or  to  praise  him,  for  she  had  given  in  ad- 
vance her  opinion.  The  only  well  chosen  thing 
that  came  to  her  lips — ah,  well  it  was  not  spoken, 
and  the  pressure  of  her  soft  arms  about  his  neck 
was  reward  for  much  suffering. 

At  last  she  drew  back  to  look  into  his  face. 
Her  practical  self  asserted  itself.  "But  your  au- 
tomobile is  gone,"  she  exclaimed,  "and  it  was  the 
apple  of  your  eye." 

He  waved  his  hand  to  sweep  away  such  idle 
considerations. 

"I  am  glad  of  it,"  he  said.  "It  was  too  big 
for  our  lives.  You  and  I  will  not  require  ninety 
horsepower  to  convince  the  world  that  we  are  be- 
ing properly  transported  from  place  to  place." 

She  might  have  told  him  this  was  an  epigram, 
a  specification  for  right  living,  an  expression  of 
belief  in  the  things  in  which  she  wanted  him  to 
believe.  But  she  merely  laughed  contentedly, 
her  lower  lip  drawn  in  between  her  white  teeth. 


THE    END 


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